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SEVEN MEN 


THIS, THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION 
OF SEVEN MEN, CONTAINING AN 
APPENDIX AND SIX DRAWINGS NOT 
PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE, CONSISTS 
OF TWO THOUSAND COPIES OF WHICH 
THIS IS NUMBER V* 1 




\ 


SEVEN MEN 

MAX BEERBOHM 



ALFRED . A * KNOPF 

C<r / | A M 'Zj 


NEW YORK 


MCMXX 


COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
MAX BEERBOHM 



# 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATUS OP AMERICA 


MV -5 1820 




©CI.A60L386 


I 


CONTENTS 


ENOCH SOAMES 

9 

HILARY MALTBY and 


STEPHEN BRAXTON 

55 

JAMES PETHEL 

107 

A. V. LAIDER 

i 37 

‘ SAVONAROLA ’ BROWN 

171 

DRAWINGS 


ENOCH SOAMES 

223 

HILARY MALTBY and 


STEPHEN BRAXTON 

227 

JAMES PETHEL 

231 

A. V. LAIDER 

235 


‘ SAVONAROLA ’ BROWN 


239 











































' 


















. 


- 





















































































X 


ENOCH SOAMES 





ENOCH SOAMES 

W HEN a book about the literature of the eighteen- 
nineties was given by Mr. Holbrook Jackson to the 
world, I looked eagerly in the index for SOAMES, 
ENOCH. I had feared he would not be there. He was not 
there. But everybody else was. Many writers whom I had 
quite forgotten, or remembered but faintly, lived again for me, 
they and their work, in Mr. Holbrook Jackson’s pages. The 
book was as thorough as it was brilliantly written. And thus 
the omission found by me was an all the deadlier record of poor 
Soames’ failure to impress himself on his decade. 

I daresay I am the only person who noticed the omission. 
Soames had failed so piteously as all that! Nor is there a 
counterpoise in the thought that if he had had some measure of 
success he might have passed, like those others, out of my mind, 
to return only at the historian’s beck. It is true that had his 
gifts, such as they were, been acknowledged in his life-time, 
he would never have made the bargain I saw him make — that 
strange bargain whose results have kept him always in the fore- 
ground of my memory. But it is from those very results that 
the full piteousness of him glares out. 


[9] 


SEVEN MEN 

Not my compassion, however, impels me to write of him. 
For his sake, poor fellow, I should be inclined to keep my pen 
out of the ink. It is ill to deride the dead. And how can I 
write about Enoch Soames without making him ridiculous? 
Or rather, how am I to hush up the horrid fact that he was 
ridiculous? I shall not be able to do that. Yet, sooner or later, 
write about him I must. You will see, in due course, that I 
have no option. And I may as well get the thing done now. 

In the Summer Term of ’93 a bolt from the blue flashed down 
on Oxford. It drove deep, it hurtlingly embedded itself in 
the soil. Dons and undergraduates stood around, rather pale, 
discussing nothing but it. Whence came it, this meteorite? 
From Paris. Its name? Will Rothenstein. Its aim? To do 
a series of twenty-four portraits in lithograph. These were to 
be published from the Bodley Head, London. The matter was 
urgent. Already the Warden of A, and the Master of B, and 
the Regius Professor of C, had meekly ‘sat.’ Dignified and 
doddering old men, who had never consented to sit to any one, 
could not withstand this dynamic little stranger. He did not 
sue: he invited; he did not invite: he commanded. He was 
twenty-one years old. He wore spectacles that flashed more 
than any other pair ever seen. He was a wit. He was brimful 
of ideas. He knew Whistler. He knew Edmond de Gon- 
court. He knew every one in Paris. He knew them all by 
heart. He was Paris in Oxford. It was whispered that, so 
[10] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

soon as he had polished off his selection of dons, he was going 
to include a few undergraduates. It was a proud day for me 
when I — I was included. I liked Rothenstein not less than 
I feared him; and there arose between us a friendship that has 
grown ever warmer, and been more and more valued by me, 
with every passing year. 

At the end of Term he settled in — or rather, meteoritically 
into — London. It was to him I owed my first knowledge of 
that forever enchanting little world-in-itself, Chelsea, and my 
first acquaintance with Walter Sickert and other august elders 
who dwelt there. It was Rothenstein that took me to see, in 
Cambridge Street, Pimlico, a young man whose drawings were 
already famous among the few — Aubrey Beardsley, by name. 
With Rothenstein I paid my first visit to the Bodley Head. By 
him I was inducted into another haunt of intellect and daring, 
the domino room of the Cafe Royal. 

There, on that October evening — there, in that exuberant 
vista of gilding and crimson velvet set amidst all those oppos- 
ing mirrors and upholding caryatids, with fumes of tobacco ever 
rising to the painted and pagan ceiling, and with the hum of 
presumably cynical conversation broken into so sharply now and 
again by the clatter of dominoes shuffled on marble tables, I 
drew a deep breath, and ‘This indeed,’ said I to myself, ‘is life!’ 

It was the hour before dinner. We drank vermouth. Those 
who knew Rothenstein were pointing him out to those who knew 
him only by name. Men were constantly coming in through the 

[ii] 


SEVEN MEN 

swing-doors and wandering slowly up and down in search of 
vacant tables, or of tables occupied by friends. One of these 
rovers interested me because I was sure he wanted to catch 
Rothenstein’s eye. He had twice passed our table, with a hesi- 
tating look; but Rothenstein, in the thick of a disquisition on 
Puvis de Chavannes, had not seen him. He was a stooping, 
shambling person, rather tall, very pale, with longish and brown- 
ish hair. He had a thin vague beard — or rather, he had a chin 
on which a large number of hairs weakly curled and clustered 
to cover its retreat. He was an odd-looking person ; but in the 
’nineties odd apparitions were more frequent, I think, than they 
are now. The young writers of that era — and I was sure this 
man was a writer — strove earnestly to be distinct in aspect. This 
man had striven unsuccessfully. He wore a soft black hat of 
clerical kind but of Bohemian intention, and a grey waterproof 
cape which, perhaps because it was waterproof, failed to be 
romantic. I decided that ‘dim’ was the mot juste for him. I 
had already essayed to write, and was immensely keen on the 
mot juste , that Holy Grail of the period. 

The dim man was now again approaching our table, and this 
time he made up his mind to pause in front of it. ‘You don’t re- 
member me,’ he said in a toneless voice. 

Rothenstein brightly focussed him. ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied 
after a moment, with pride rather than effusion — pride in a re- 
tentive memory. ‘Edwin Soames.’ 

‘Enoch Soames,’ said Enoch. 

[ 12 ] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

‘Enoch Soames,’ repeated Rothenstein in a tone implying that 
it was enough to have hit on the surname. ‘We met in Paris 
two or three times when you were living there. We met at the 
Cafe Groche.’ 

‘And I came to your studio once.’ 

‘Oh yes; I was sorry I was out.’ 

‘But you were in. You showed me some of your paintings, 
you know. . . I hear you’re in Chelsea now.’ 

‘Yes.’ 

I almost wondered that Mr. Soames did not, after this mono- 
syllable, pass along. He stood patiently there, rather like a 
dumb animal, rather like a donkey looking over a gate. A sad 
figure, his. It occurred to me that ‘hungry’ was perhaps the 
mot juste for him; but — hungry for what? He looked as if he 
had little appetite for anything. I was sorry for him; and 
Rothenstein, though he had not invited him to Chelsea, did ask 
him to sit down and have something to drink. 

Seated, he was more self-assertive. He flung back the wings 
of his cape with a gesture which — had not those wings been 
waterproof — might have seemed to hurl defiance at things in 
general. And he ordered an absinthe. ‘Je me tiens toujours 
fidele / he told Rothenstein, ‘a la sorciere glauque / 

‘It is bad for you,’ said Rothenstein dryly. 

‘Nothing is bad for one,’ answered Soames. 'Dans ce monde 
il n’ y a ni de bien ni de mal ! 

‘Nothing good and nothing bad? How do you mean?’ 


[13] 


SEVEN MEN 

‘I explained it all in the preface to “Negations.” ’ 

4 “Negations”?’ 

‘Yes; I gave you a copy of it.’ 

‘Oh yes, of course. But did you explain — for instance — that 
there was no such thing as bad or good grammar?’ 

‘N-no,’ said Soames. ‘Of course in Art there is the good and 
the evil. But in Life — no.’ He was rolling a cigarette. He 
had weak white hands, not well washed, and with finger-tips 
much stained by nicotine. ‘In Life there are illusions of good 
and evil, but’ — his voice trailed away to a murmur in which the 
words ‘vieux jeu’ and ‘rococo’ were faintly audible. I think he 
felt he was not doing himself justice, and feared that Rothenstein 
was going to point out fallacies. Anyhow, he cleared his throat 
and said ‘Parlous d’autre chose/ 

It occurs to you that he was a fool? It didn’t to me. I was 
young, and had not the clarity of judgment that Rothenstein al- 
ready had. Soames was quite five or six years older than either 
of us. Also, he had written a book. 

It was wonderful to have written a book. 

If Rothenstein had not been there, I should have revered 
Soames. Even as it was, I respected him. And I was very near 
indeed to reverence when he said he had another book coming 
out soon. I asked if I might ask what kind of book it was 
to be. 

‘My poems,’ he answered. Rothenstein asked if this was to 
be the title of the book. The poet meditated on this suggestion, 

[14] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

but said he rather thought of giving the book no title at all. ‘If 
a book is good in itself — ’ he murmured, waving his cigarette. 

Rothenstein objected that absence of title might be bad for the 
sale of a book. ‘If,’ he urged, ‘I went into a bookseller’s and said 
simply “Have you got?” or “Have you a copy of?” how would 
they know what I wanted?’ 

‘Oh, of course I should have my name on the cover,’ Soames 
answered earnestly. ‘And I rather want,’ he added, looking 
hard at Rothenstein, ‘to have a drawing of myself as frontis- 
piece.’ Rothenstein admitted that this was a capital idea, and 
mentioned that he was going into the country and would be there 
for some time. He then looked at his watch, exclaimed at the 
hour, paid the waiter, and went away with me to dinner. Soames 
remained at his post of fidelity to the glaucous witch. 

‘Why were you so determined not to draw him?’ I asked. 

‘Draw him? Him? How can one draw a man who doesn’t 
exist?’ 

‘He is dim,’ I admitted. But my mot juste fell flat. Rothen- 
stein repeated that Soames was non-existent. 

Still, Soames had written a book. I asked if Rothenstein had 
read ‘Negations.’ He said he had looked into it, ‘but,’ he added 
crisply, ‘I don’t profess to know anything about writing.’ A 
reservation very characteristic of the period! Painters would 
not then allow that any one outside their own order had a right to 
any opinion about painting. This law (graven on the tablets 
brought down by Whistler from the summit of Fujiyama) im- 

[15] 


SEVEN MEN 

posed certain limitations. If other arts than painting were not 
utterly unintelligible to all but the men who practised them, the 
law tottered — the Monroe Doctrine, as it were, did not hold 
good. Therefore no painter would offer an opinion of a book 
without warning you at any rate that his opinion was worthless. 
No one is a better judge of literature than Rothenstein; but it 
wouldn’t have done to tell him so in those days; and I knew that 
I must form an unaided judgment on ‘Negations.’ 

Not to buy a book of which I had met the author face to face 
would have been for me in those days an impossible act of self- 
denial. When I returned to Oxford for the Christmas Term I 
had duly secured ‘Negations.’ I used to keep it lying carelessly 
on the table in my room, and whenever a friend took it up and 
asked what it was about I would say ‘Oh, it’s rather a remarkable 
book. It’s by a man whom I know.’ Just ‘what it was about’ 
I never was able to say. Head or tail was just what I hadn’t 
made of that slim green volume. I found in the preface no clue 
to the exiguous labyrinth of contents, and in that labyrinth noth- 
ing to explain the preface. 

' Lean near to life. Lean very near — nearer. 

‘Life is web , and therein nor warp nor woof is, but web only . 

‘It is for this I am Gatholick in church and in thought, yet do 
let swift Mood weave there what the shuttle of Mood wills 

These were the opening phrases of the preface, but those which 
followed were less easy to understand. Then came ‘Stark: A 
Conte,’ about a midinette who, so far as I could gather, mur- 

[16] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

dered, or was about to murder, a mannequin. It was rather like 
a story by Catulle Mendes in which the translator had either 
skipped or cut out every alternate sentence. Next, a dialogue 
between Pan and St. Ursula — lacking, I felt, in ‘snap.’ Next, 
some aphorisms (entitled a^oplaimra ) . Throughout, in fact, 
there was a great variety of form ; and the forms had evidently 
been wrought with much care. It was rather the substance that 
eluded me. Was there, I wondered, any substance at all? It 
did now occur to me: suppose Enoch Soames was a fool! Up 
cropped a rival hypothesis: suppose I was! I inclined to give 
Soames the benefit of the doubt. I had read ‘L’Apres-midi 
d’un Faune’ without extracting a glimmer of meaning. Yet 
Mallarme — of course — was a Master. How was I to know that 
Soames wasn’t another? There was a sort of music in his prose, 
not indeed arresting, but perhaps, I thought, haunting, and laden 
perhaps with meanings as deep as Mallarme’s own. I awaited 
his poems with an open mind. 

And I looked forward to them with positive impatience after 
I had had a second meeting with him. This was on an evening 
in January. Going into the aforesaid domino room, I passed 
a table at which sat a pale man with an open book before him. 
He looked from his book to me, and I looked back over my 
shoulder with a vague sense that I ought to have recognised him. 
I returned to pay my respects. After exchanging a few words, 
I said with a glance to the open book, ‘I see I am interrupting 
you,’ and was about to pass on, but ‘I prefer,’ Soames replied in 

[17] 


SEVEN MEN 

his toneless voice, ‘to be interrupted,’ and I obeyed his gesture 
that I should sit down. 

I asked him if he often read here. ‘Yes; things of this kind I 
read here,’ he answered, indicating the title of his book — ‘The 
Poems of Shelley.’ 

‘Anything that you really’ — and I was going to say ‘admire?’ 
But I cautiously left my sentence unfinished, and was glad that 
I had done so, for he said, with unwonted emphasis, ‘Anything 
second-rate.’ 

I had read little of Shelley, but ‘Of course,’ I murmured, 
‘he’s very uneven.’ 

‘I should have thought evenness was just what was wrong with 
him. A deadly evenness. That’s why I read him here. The 
noise of this place breaks the rhythm. He’s tolerable here.’ 
Soames took up the book and glanced through the pages. He 
laughed. Soames’ laugh was a short, single and mirthless sound 
from the throat, unaccompanied by any movement of the face or 
brightening of the eyes. ‘What a period!’ he uttered, laying the 
book down. And ‘What a country!’ he added. 

I asked rather nervously if he didn’t think Keats had more or 
less held his own against the drawbacks of time and place. He 
admitted that there were ‘passages in Keats,’ but did not specify 
them. Of ‘the older men,’ as he called them, he seemed to like 
only Milton. ‘Milton,’ he said, ‘wasn’t sentimental.’ Also, 
‘Milton had a dark insight.’ And again, ‘I can always read Mil- 
ton in the reading-room.’ 

[18] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

‘The reading-room?’ 

‘Of the British Museum. I go there every day.’ 

‘You do? I’ve only been there once. I’m afraid I found it 
rather a depressing place. It — it seemed to sap one’s vitality.’ 

‘It does. That’s why I go there. The lower one’s vitality, 
the more sensitive one is to great art. I live near the Museum. 
I have rooms in Dyott Street.’ 

‘And you go round to the reading-room to read Milton?’ 

‘Usually Milton.’ He looked at me. ‘It was Milton,’ he 
certificatively added, ‘who converted me to Diabolism.’ 

‘Diabolism? Oh yes? Really?’ said I, with that vague dis- 
comfort and that intense desire to be polite which one feels when 
a man speaks of his own religion. ‘You — worship the Devil?’ 

Soames shook his head. ‘It’s not exactly worship,’ he quali- 
fied, sipping his absinthe. ‘It’s more a matter of trusting and 
encouraging.’ 

‘Ah, yes. . . But I had rather gathered from the preface to 
“Negations” that you were a — a Catholic.’ 

*Je I’etais a cette epoque . Perhaps I still am. Yes, I’m a 
Catholic diabolist.’ 

This profession he made in an almost cursory tone. I could 
see that what was upmost in his mind was the fact that I had read 
‘Negations.’ His pale eyes had for the first time gleamed. I 
felt as one who is about to be examined, viva voce , on the very 
subject in which he is shakiest. I hastily asked him how soon his 
poems were to be published. ‘Next week,’ he told me. 


[19] 


SEVEN MEN 

‘And are they to be published without a title?’ 

‘No. I found a title, at last. But I shan’t tell you what it 
is,’ as though I had been so impertinent as to inquire. ‘I am not 
sure that it wholly satisfies me. But it is the best I can find. It 
suggests something of the quality of the poems. . . Strange 
growths, natural and wild, yet exquisite,’ he added, ‘and many- 
hued, and full of poisons.’ 

I asked him what he thought of Baudelaire. He uttered the 
snort that was his laugh, and ‘Baudelaire,’ he said, ‘was a bour- 
geois malgre lui! France had had only one poet : Villon; ‘and 
two-thirds of Villon were sheer journalism.’ Verlaine was ‘an 
epicier malgre lui / Altogether, rather to my surprise, he rated 
French literature lower than English. There were ‘passages’ 
in Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. But ‘I,’ he summed up, ‘owe nothing 
to France.’ He nodded at me. ‘You’ll see,’ he predicted. 

I did not, when the time came, quite see that. I thought the 
author of ‘Fungoids’ did — unconsciously, of course — owe some- 
thing to the young Parisian decadents, or to the young English 
ones who owed something to them . I still think so. The little 
book — bought by me in Oxford — lies before me as I write. Its 
pale grey buckram cover and silver lettering have not worn well. 
Nor have its contents. Through these, with a melancholy in- 
terest, I have again been looking. They are not much. But at 
the time of their publication I had a vague suspicion that they 
might be. I suppose it is my capacity for faith, not poor Soames’ 
work, that is weaker than it once was. . . 

[ 20 ] 


ENOCH SOAMES 


To a Young Woman 

Thou art, who hast not been! 

Pale tunes irresolute 
And traceries of old sounds 
Blown from a rotted flute 
Mingle with noise of cymbals rouged with rust, 

Nor not strange forms and epicene 
Lie bleeding in the dust, 

Being wounded with wounds. 

For this it is 
That in thy counterpart 
Of age-long mockeries 
Thou hast not been nor art! 

There seemed to me a certain inconsistency as between the 
first and last lines of this. I tried, with bent brows, to resolve 
the discord. But I did not take my failure as wholly incompati- 
ble with a meaning in Soames’ mind. Might it not rather in- 
dicate the depth of his meaning? As for the craftsmanship, 
‘rouged with rust’ seemed to me a fine stroke, and ‘nor not’ in- 
stead of ‘and’ had a curious felicity. I wondered who the Young 
Woman was, and what she had made of it all. I sadly suspect 
that Soames could not have made more of it than she. Yet, even 

[21] 


SEVEN MEN 

now, if one doesn’t try to make any sense at all of the poem, and 
reads it just for the sound, there is a certain grace of cadence. 
Soames was an artist — in so far as he was anything, poor fellow! 

It seemed to me, when first I read ‘Fungoids,’ that, oddly 
enough, the Diabolistic side of him was the best. Diabolism 
seemed to be a cheerful, even a wholesome, influence in his life. 

Nocturne 

Round and round the shutter’d Square 
I stroll’d with the Devil’s arm in mine. 

No sound but the scrape of his hoofs was there 
And the ring of his laughter and mine. 

We had drunk black wine. 

I scream’d, f I will race you, Master!’ 

‘ What matter,’ he shriek’d, f to-night 
Which of us runs the faster? 

There is nothing to fear to-night 
In the foul moon’s light!’ 

Then I look’d him in the eyes, 

And I laugh’d full shrill at the lie he told 
And the gnawing fear he would fain disguise. 

It was true, what I’d time and again been told : 

He was old — old. 


[22] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

There was, I felt, quite a swing about that first stanza — a joy- 
ous and rollicking note of comradeship. The second was slightly 
hysterical perhaps. But I liked the third: it was so bracingly 
unorthodox, even according to the tenets of Soames’ peculiar sect 
in the faith. Not much ‘trusting and encouraging’ here! 
Soames triumphantly exposing the Devil as a liar, and laughing 
‘full shrill,’ cut a quite heartening figure, I thought — then! 
Now, in the light of what befell, none of his poems depresses me 
so much as ‘Nocturne.’ 

I looked out for what the metropolitan reviewers would have 
to say. They seemed to fall into two classes : those who had little 
to say and those who had nothing. The second class was the 
larger, and the words of the first were cold ; insomuch that 

Strikes a note of modernity throughout. . . . These tripping 
numbers . — Preston Telegraph 

was the only lure offered in advertisements by Soames’ publisher. 
I had hopes that when next I met the poet I could congratulate 
him on having made a stir; for I fancied he was not so sure of his 
intrinsic greatness as he seemed. I was but able to say, rather 
coarsely, when next I did see him, that I hoped ‘Fungoids’ was 
‘selling splendidly.’ He looked at me across his glass of absinthe 
and asked if I had bought a copy. His publisher had told him 
that three had been sold. I laughed, as at a jest. 

‘You don’t suppose I care , do you?’ he said, with something 
like a snarl. I disclaimed the notion. He added that he was 

[23] 


SEVEN MEN 

not a tradesman. I said mildly that I wasn’t, either, and mur- 
mured that an artist who gave truly new and great things to the 
world had always to wait long for recognition. He said he 
cared not a sou for recognition. I agreed that the act of creation 
was its own reward. 

His moroseness might have alienated me if I had regarded my- 
self as a nobody. But ah! hadn’t both John Lane and Aubrey 
Beardsley suggested that I should write an essay for the great 
new venture that was afoot — ‘The Yellow Book’? And hadn’t 
Henry Harland, as editor, accepted my essay? And wasn’t it to 
be in the very first number? At Oxford I was still in statu pupil- 
lari '. In London I regarded myself as very much indeed a grad- 
uate now — one whom no Soames could ruffle. Partly to show 
off, partly in sheer good-will, I told Soames he ought to con- 
tribute to ‘The Yellow Book.’ He uttered from the throat a 
sound of scorn for that publication. 

Nevertheless, I did, a day or two later, tentatively ask Harland 
if he knew anything of the work of a man called Enoch Soames. 
Harland paused in the midst of his characteristic stride around 
the room, threw up his hands towards the ceiling, and groaned 
aloud: he had often met ‘that absurd creature’ in Paris, and this 
very morning had received some poems in manuscript from him. 

‘Has he no talent?’ I asked. 

‘He has an income. He’s all right.’ Harland was the most 
joyous of men and most generous of critics, and he hated to talk 
of anything about which he couldn’t be enthusiastic. So I 

[24] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

dropped the subject of Soam'es. The news that Soames had an 
income did take the edge off solicitude. I learned afterwards 
that he was the son of an unsuccessful and deceased bookseller in 
Preston, but had inherited an annuity of £300 from a married 
aunt, and had no surviving relatives of any kind. Materially, 
then, he was ‘all right.’ But there was still a spiritual pathos 
about him, sharpened for me now by the possibility that even the 
praises of The Preston Telegraph might not have been forthcom- 
ing had he not been the son of a Preston man. He had a sort of 
weak doggedness which I could not but admire. Neither he nor 
his work received the slightest encouragement; but he persisted 
in behaving as a personage: always he kept his dingy little flag 
flying. Wherever congregated the jeunes feroces of the arts, in 
whatever Soho restaurant they had just discovered, in whatever 
music-hall they were most frequenting, there was Soames in the 
midst of them, or rather on the fringe of them, a dim but inevita- 
ble figure. He never sought to propitiate his fellow-writers, 
never bated a jot of his arrogance about his own work. or of his 
contempt for theirs. To the painters he was respectful, even 
humble; but for the poets and prosaists of ‘The Yellow Book,’ 
and later of ‘The Savoy,’ he had never a word but of scorn. He 
wasn’t resented. It didn’t occur to anybody that he or his Catho- 
lic Diabolism mattered. When, in the autumn of ’96, he brought 
out (at his own expense, this time) a third book, his last book, 
nobody said a word for or against it. I meant, but forgot, to buy 
it. I never saw it, and am ashamed to say I don’t even remember 


SEVEN MEN 

what it was called. But I did, at the time of its publication, say 
to Rothenstein that I thought poor old Soames was really a rather 
tragic figure, and that I believed he would literally die for want 
of recognition. Rothenstein scoffed. He said I was trying to 
get credit for a kind heart which I didn’t possess; and perhaps 
this was so. But at the private view of the New English Art 
Club, a few weeks later, I beheld a pastel portrait of ‘Enoch 
Soames, Esq.’ It was very like him, and very like Rothenstein 
to have done it. Soames was standing near it, in his soft hat and 
his waterproof cape, all through the afternoon. Anybody who 
knew him would have recognised the portrait at a glance, but 
nobody who didn’t know him would have recognised the portrait 
from its bystander: it ‘existed’ so much more than he; it was 
bound to. Also, it had not that expression of faint happiness 
which on this day was discernible, yes, in Soames’ countenance. 
Fame had breathed on him. Twice again in the course of the 
month I went to the New English, and on both occasions Soames 
himself was on view there. Looking back, I regard the close of 
that exhibition as having been virtually the close of his career. 
He had felt the breath of Fame against his cheek — so late, for 
such a little while; and at its withdrawal he gave in, gave up, 
gave out. He, who had never looked strong or well, looked 
ghastly now — a shadow of the shade he had once been. He still 
frequented the domino room, but, having lost all wish to excite 
curiosity, he no longer read books there. ‘You read only at the 
Museum now?’ asked I, with attempted cheerfulness. He said 


ENOCH SOAMES 

he never went there now. ‘No absinthe there,’ he muttered. It 
was the sort of thing that in the old days he would have said for 
effect; but it carried conviction now. Absinthe, erst but a point 
in the ‘personality’ he had striven so hard to build up, was solace 
and necessity now. He no longer called it ‘la sorciere glauque.’ 
He had shed away all his French phrases. He had become a 
plain, unvarnished, Preston man. 

Failure, if it be a plain, unvarnished, complete failure, and 
even though it be a squalid failure, has always a certain dignity. 
I avoided Soames because he made me feel rather vulgar. John 
Lane had published, by this time, two little books of mine, and 
they had had a pleasant little success of esteem. I was a — slight 
but definite — ‘personality.’ Frank Harris had engaged me to 
kick up my heels in The Saturday Review , Alfred Harmsworth 
was letting me do likewise in The Daily Mail. I was just what 
Soames wasn’t. And he shamed my gloss. Had I known that 
he really and firmly believed in the greatness of what he as an 
artist had achieved, I might not have shunned him. No man 
who hasn’t lost his vanity can be held to have altogether failed. 
Soames’ dignity was an illusion of mine. One day in the first 
week of June, 1897, that illusion went. But on the evening of 
that day Soames went too. 

I had been out most of the morning, and, as it was too late to 
reach home in time for luncheon, I sought ‘the Vingtieme.’ 
This little place — Restaurant du Vingtieme Siecle, to give 
it its full title — had been discovered in ’96 by the poets and 

[27] 


SEVEN MEN 

prosaists, but had now been more or less abandoned in favour 
of some later find. I don’t think it lived long enough to justify 
its name; but at that time there it still was, in Greek Street, a 
few doors from Soho Square, and almost opposite to that house 
where, in the first years of the century, a little girl, and with her 
a boy named De Quincey, made nightly encampment in darkness 
and hunger among dust and rats and old legal parchments. The 
Vingtieme was but a small whitewashed room, leading out into 
the street at one end and into a kitchen at the other. The pro- 
prietor and cook was a Frenchman, known to us as Monsieur 
Vingtieme; the waiters were his two daughters, Rose and Berthe; 
and the food, according to faith, was good. The tables were so 
narrow, and were set so close together, that there was space for 
twelve of them, six jutting from either wall. 

Only the two nearest to the door, as I went in, were occupied. 
On one side sat a tall, flashy, rather Mephistophelian man whom 
I had seen from time to time in the domino room and elsewhere. 
On the other side sat Soames. They made a queer contrast in 
that sunlit room — Soames sitting haggard in that hat and cape 
which nowhere at any season had I seen him doff, and this other, 
this keenly vital man, at sight of whom I more than ever won- 
dered whether he were a diamond merchant, a conjurer, or the 
head of a private detective agency. I was sure Soames didn’t 
want my company; but I asked, as it would have seemed brutal 
not to, whether I might join him, and took the chair opposite to 
his. He was smoking a cigarette, with an untasted salmi of 


ENOCH SOAMES 

something on his plate and a half-empty bottle of Sauterne before 
him; and he was quite silent. I said that the preparations for 
the Jubilee made London impossible. (I rather liked them, 
really.) I professed a wish to go right away till the whole thing 
was over. In vain did I attune myself to his gloom. He seemed 
not to hear me nor even to see me. I felt that his behaviour made 
me ridiculous in the eyes of the other man. The gangway be- 
tween the two rows of tables at the Vingtieme was hardly more 
than two feet wide (Rose and Berthe, in their ministrations, had 
always to edge past each other, quarrelling in whispers as they 
did so), and any one at the table abreast of yours was practically 
at yours. I thought our neighbour was amused at my failure to 
interest Soames, and so, as I could not explain to him that my 
insistence was merely charitable, I became silent. Without turn- 
ing my head, I had him well within my range of vision. I hoped 
I looked less vulgar than he in contrast with Soames. I was sure 
he was not an Englishman, but what was his nationality? 
Though his jet-black hair was en brosse , I did not think he was 
French. To Berthe, who waited on him, he spoke French 
fluently, but with a hardly native idiom and accent. I gathered 
that this was his first visit to the Vingtieme; but Berthe was off- 
hand in her manner to him: he had not made a good impression. 
His eyes were handsome, but — like the Vingtieme’s tables — too 
narrow and set too close together. His nose was predatory, and 
the points of his moustache, waxed up beyond his nostrils, gave 
a fixity to his smile. Decidedly, he was sinister. And my sense 

[29] 


SEVEN MEN 

of discomfort in his presence was intensified by the scarlet waist- 
coat which tightly, and so unseasonably in June, sheathed his 
ample chest. This waistcoat wasn’t wrong merely because of 
the heat, either. It was somehow all wrong in itself. It 
wouldn’t have done on Christmas morning. It would have 
struck a jarring note at the first night of ‘Hernani.’ I was trying 
to account for its wrongness when Soames suddenly and strangely 
broke silence. ‘A hundred years hence!’ he murmured, as in a 
trance. 

We shall not be here!’ I briskly but fatuously added. 

We shall not be here. No,’ he droned, ‘but the Museum will 
still be just where it is. And the reading-room, just where it 
is. And people will be able to go and read there.’ He 
inhaled sharply, and a spasm as of actual pain contorted his 
features. 

I wondered what train of thought poor Soames had been fol- 
lowing. He did not enlighten me when he said, after a long 
pause, ‘You think I haven’t minded.’ 

‘Minded what, Soames?’ 

‘Neglect. Failure.’ 

'Failure?' I said heartily. ‘Failure?’ I repeated vaguely. 
‘Neglect — yes, perhaps; but that’s quite another matter. Of 
course you haven’t been — appreciated. But what then? Any 
artist who — who gives — ’ What I wanted to say was, ‘Any art- 
ist who gives truly new and great things to the world has always 
to wait long for recognition’; but the flattery would not out: in 
[ 30 ] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

the face of his misery, a misery so genuine and so unmasked, my 
lips would not say the words. 

And then — he said them for me. I flushed. ‘That’s what you 
were going to say, isn’t it?’ he asked. 

‘How did you know?’ 

‘It’s what you said to me three years ago, when “Fungoids” 
was published.’ I flushed the more. I need not have done so 
at all, for ‘It’s the only important thing I ever heard you say,’ 
he continued. ‘And I’ve never forgotten it. It’s a true thing. 
It’s a horrible truth. But — d’you remember what I answered? 
I said “I don’t care a sou for recognition.” And you believed 
me. You’ve gone on believing I’m above that sort of thing. 
You’re shallow. What should you know of the feelings of a 
man like me? You imagine that a great artist’s faith in himself 
and in the verdict of posterity is enough to keep him happy. . . 
You’ve never guessed at the bitterness and loneliness, the’ — his 
voice broke; but presently he resumed, speaking with a force 
that I had never known in him. ‘Posterity! What use is it to 
me ? A dead man doesn’t know that people are visiting his grave 
— visiting his birthplace — putting up tablets to him — unveiling 
statues of him. A dead man can’t read the books that are written 
about him. A hundred years hence! Think of it! If I could 
come back to life then — just for a few hours — and go to the read- 
ing-room, and read\ Or better still: if I could be projected, 
now, at this moment, into that future, into that reading-room, 
just for this one afternoon! I’d sell myself body and soul to the 

[31] 


SEVEN MEN 

devil, for that! Think of the pages and pages in the catalogue: 
“Soames, ENOCH” endlessly — endless editions, commentaries, 
prolegomena, biographies’ — but here he was interrupted by a 
sudden loud creak of the chair at the next table. Our neighbour 
had half risen from his place. He was leaning towards us, 
apologetically intrusive. 

‘Excuse — permit me,’ he said softly. ‘I have been unable not 
to hear. Might I take a liberty? In this little restaurant-sans- 
fagon’ — he spread wide his hands — ‘might I, as the phrase is, 
“cut in”?’ 

I could but signify our acquiescence. Berthe had appeared at 
the kitchen door, thinking the stranger wanted his bill. He 
waved her away with his cigar, and in another moment had seated 
himself beside me, commanding a full view of Soames. 

‘Though not an Englishman,’ he explained, ‘I know my Lon- 
don well, Mr. Soames. Your name and fame — Mr. Beerbohm’s 
too — very known to me. Your point is: who am /?’ He 
glanced quickly over his shoulder, and in a lowered voice said 
‘I am the Devil.’ 

I couldn’t help it: I laughed. I tried not to, I knew there was 
nothing to laugh at, my rudeness shamed me, but — I laughed 
with increasing volume. The Devil’s quiet dignity, the surprise 
and disgust of his raised eyebrows, did but the more dissolve me. 
I rocked to and fro, I lay back aching. I behaved deplorably. 

‘I am a gentleman, and,’ he said with intense emphasis, ‘I 
thought I was in the company of gentlemen / 

[32] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

‘Don’t!’ I gasped faintly. ‘Oh, don’t!’ 

‘Curious, nicht wahrT I heard him say to Soames. ‘There is 
a type of person to whom the very mention of my name is — oh- 
so-awfully-funny ! In your theatres the dullest comedien needs 
only to say “The Devil!” and right away they give him “the loud 
laugh that speaks the vacant mind.” Is it not so?’ 

I had now just breath enough to offer my apologies. He ac- 
cepted them, but coldly, and re-addressed himself to Soames. 

‘I am a man of business,’ he said, ‘and always I would put 
things through “right now,” as they say in the States. You are 
a poet. Les affaires — you detest them. So be it. But with me 
you will deal, eh? What you have said just now gives me 
furiously to hope.’ 

Soames had not moved, except to light a fresh cigarette. He 
sat crouched forward, with his elbows squared on the table, and 
his head just above the level of his hands, staring up at the Devil. 
<Go on,’ he nodded. I had no remnant of laughter in me now. 

‘It will be the more pleasant, our little deal,’ the Devil went 
on, ‘because you are — I mistake not? — a Diabolist.’ 

‘A Catholic Diabolist,’ said Soames. 

The Devil accepted the reservation genially. ‘You wish,’ he 
resumed, ‘to visit now — this afternoon as-ever-is — the reading- 
room of the British Museum, yes? but of a hundred years hence, 
yes? Parfaitement. Time — an illusion. Past and future — 
they are as ever-present as the present, or at any rate only what 
you call “just-round-the-corner.” I switch you on to any date. 

[33] 


SEVEN MEN 

I project you — pouf! You wish to be in the reading-room just 
as it will be on the afternoon of June 3, 1997? You wish to find 
yourself standing in that room, just past the swing-doors, this very 
minute, yes? and to stay there till closing time? Am I right?’ 

Soames nodded. 

The Devil looked at his watch. Ten past two,’ he said. 
‘Closing time in summer same then as now: seven o’clock. That 
will give you almost five hours. At seven o’clock — pouf ! — you 
find yourself again here, sitting at this table. I am dining to- 
night dans le monde — dans le higlif. That concludes my present 
visit to your great city. I come and fetch you here, Mr. Soames, 
on my way home.’ 

‘Home?’ I echoed. 

‘Be it never so humble!’ said the Devil lightly. 

‘All right,’ said Soames. 

‘Soames!’ I entreated. But my friend moved not a muscle. 

The Devil had made as though to stretch forth his hand across 
the table and touch Soames’ forearm; but he paused in his 
gesture. 

‘A hundred years hence, as now,’ he smiled, ‘no smoking al- 
lowed in the reading-room. You would better therefore ’ 

Soames removed the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it 
into his glass of Sauterne. 

‘Soames!’ again I cried. ‘Can’t you’ — but the Devil had now 
stretched forth his hand across the table. He brought it slowly 

[34] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

down on — the table-cloth. Soames’ chair was empty. His cig- 
arette floated sodden in his wine-glass. There was no other trace 
of him. 

For a few moments the Devil let his hand rest where it lay, 
gazing at me out of the corners of his eyes, vulgarly triumphant. 

A shudder shook me. With an effort I controlled myself and 
rose from my chair. ‘Very clever,’ I said condescendingly. 
‘But — “The Time Machine” is a delightful book, don’t you 
think? So entirely original!’ 

‘You are pleased to sneer,’ said the Devil, who had also risen, 
‘but it is one thing to write about an impossible machine; it is 
a quite other thing to be a Supernatural Power.’ All the same, 
I had scored. 

Berthe had come forth at the sound of our rising. I explained 
to her that Mr. Soames had been called away, and that both he 
and I would be dining here. It was not until I was out in the 
open air that I began to feel giddy. I have but the haziest recol- 
lection of what I did, where I wandered, in the glaring sunshine 
of that endless afternoon. I remember the sound of carpenters’ 
hammers all along Piccadilly, and the bare chaotic look of the 
half-erected ‘stands.’ Was it in the Green Park, or in Kensing- 
ton Gardens, or where was it that I sat on a chair beneath a tree, 
trying to read an evening paper? There was a phrase in the 
leading article that went on repeating itself in my fagged mind 
— ‘Little is hidden from this august Lady full of the garnered 

[35] 


SEVEN MEN 

wisdom of sixty years of Sovereignty.’ I remember wildly con- 
ceiving a letter (to reach Windsor by express messenger told to 
await answer) : 

Madam, — Well knowing that your Majesty is full of the 
garnered wisdom of sixty years of Sovereignty, I venture to ask 
your advice in the following delicate matter. Mr. Enoch 
Soames, whose poems you may or may not know,’ . . . 

Was there no way of helping him — saving him? A bargain was 
a bargain, and I was the last man to aid or abet any one in wrig- 
gling out of a reasonable obligation. I wouldn’t have lifted a 
little finger to save Faust. But poor Soames! — doomed to pay 
without respite an. eternal price for nothing but a fruitless search 
and a bitter disillusioning. . . 

Odd and uncanny it seemed to me that he, Soames, in the flesh, 
in the waterproof cape, was at this moment living in the last 
decade of the next century, poring over books not yet written, 
and seeing and seen by men not yet born. Uncannier and odder 
still, that to-night and evermore he would be in Hell. Assur- 
edly, truth was stranger than fiction. 

Endless that afternoon was. Almost I wished I had gone with 
Soames — not indeed to stay in the reading-room, but to sally 
forth for a brisk sight-seeing walk around a new London. I 
wandered restlessly out of the Park I had sat in. Vainly I tried 
to imagine myself an ardent tourist from the eighteenth century. 

[36] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

Intolerable was the strain of the slow-passing and empty minutes. 
Long before seven o’clock I was back at the Vingtieme. 

I sat there just where I had sat for luncheon. Air came in 
listlessly through the open door behind me. Now and again 
Rose or Berthe appeared for a moment. I had told them I 
would not order any dinner till Mr. Soames came. A hurdy- 
gurdy began to play, abruptly drowning the noise of a quarrel 
between some Frenchmen further up the street. Whenever the 
tune was changed I heard the quarrel still raging. I had bought 
another evening paper on my way. I unfolded it. My eyes 
gazed ever away from it to the clock over the kitchen door. . . 

Five minutes, now, to the hour! I remembered that clocks in 
restaurants are kept five minutes fast. I concentrated my eyes 
on the paper. I vowed I would not look away from it again. I 
held it upright, at its full width, close to my face, so that I had 
no view of anything but it. . . Rather a tremulous sheet? Only 
because of the draught, I told myself. 

My arms gradually became stiff; they ached; but I could not 
drop them — now. I had a suspicion, I had a certainty. Well, 
what then? . . . What else had I come for? Yet I held tight 
that barrier of newspaper. Only the sound of Berthe’s brisk 
footstep from the kitchen enabled me, forced me, to drop it, and 
to utter: 

What shall we have to eat, Soames?’ 

*// est souffrant , ce pauvre Monsieur Soames ?' asked Berthe. 

‘He’s only — tired.’ I asked her to get some wine — Burgundy 

[37] 


SEVEN MEN 

— and whatever food might be ready. Soames sat crouched for- 
ward against the table, exactly as when last I had seen him. It 
was as though he had never moved — he who had moved so unim- 
aginably far. Once or twice in the afternoon it had for an instant 
occurred to me that perhaps his journey was not to be fruitless — 
that perhaps we had all been wrong in our estimate of the works 
of Enoch Soames. That we had been horribly right was hor- 
ribly clear from the look of him. But ‘Don’t be discouraged,’ I 
falteringly said. ‘Perhaps it’s only that you — didn’t leave 
enough time. Two, three centuries hence, perhaps ’ 

‘Yes,’ his voice came. ‘I’ve thought of that.’ 

‘And now — now for the more immediate future! Where are 
you going to hide? How would it be if you caught the Paris 
express from Charing Cross? Almost an hour to spare. Don’t 
go on to Paris. Stop at Calais. Live in Calais. He’d never 
think of looking for you in Calais.’ 

‘It’s like my luck,’ he said, ‘to spend my last hours on earth 
with an ass.’ But I was not offended. ‘And a treacherous ass,’ 
he strangely added, tossing across to me a crumpled bit of paper 
which he had been holding in his hand. I glanced at the writing 
on it — some sort of gibberish, apparently. I laid it impatiently 
aside. 

‘Come, Soames! pull yourself together! This isn’t a mere 
matter of life and death. It’s a question of eternal torment, 
mind you! You don’t mean to say you’re going to wait limply 
here till the Devil comes to fetch you?’ 

[38] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

‘I can’t do anything else. I’ve no choice.’ 

‘Come ! This is “trusting and encouraging” with a vengeance ! 
This is Diabolism run mad!’ I filled his glass with wine. 
‘Surely, now that you’ve seen the brute ’ 

‘It’s no good abusing him.’ 

‘You must admit there’s nothing Miltonic about him, Soames.’ 

‘I don’t say he’s not rather different from what I expected.’ 

‘He’s a vulgarian, he’s a swell-mobsman, he’s the sort of man 
who hangs about the corridors of trains going to the Riviera and 
steals ladies’ jewel-cases. Imagine eternal torment presided over 
by him !’ 

‘You don’t suppose I look forward to it, do you?’ 

‘Then why not slip quietly out of the way?’ 

Again and again I filled his glass, and always, mechanically, 
he emptied it; but the wine kindled no spark of enterprise in 
him. He did not eat, and I myself ate hardly at all. I did not 
in my heart believe that any dash for freedom could save him. 
The chase would be swift, the capture certain. But better any- 
thing than this passive, meek, miserable waiting. I told Soames 
that for the honour of the human race he ought to make some 
show of resistance. He asked what the human race had ever 
done for him. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘can’t you understand that I’m 
in his power? You saw him touch me, didn’t you? There’s an 
end of it. I’ve no will. I’m sealed.’ 

I made a gesture of despair. He went on repeating the word 
‘sealed.’ I began to realise that the wine had clouded his brain. 

[39] 


SEVEN MEN 

No wonder! Foodless he had gone into futurity, foodless he 
still was. I urged him to eat at any rate some bread. It was 
maddening to think that he, who had so much to tell, might tell 
nothing. ‘How was it all,’ I asked, ‘yonder? Come! Tell me 
your adventures.’ 

‘They’d make first-rate “copy,” wouldn’t they?’ 

‘I’m awfully sorry for you, Soames, and I make all possible 
allowances; but what earthly right have you to insinuate that I 
should make “copy,” as you call it, out of you?’ 

The poor fellow pressed his hands to his forehead. ‘I don’t 
know,’ he said. ‘I had some reason, I know. . . I’ll try to re- 
member.’ 

‘That’s right. Try to remember everything. Eat a little 
more bread. What did the reading-room look like?’ 

‘Much as usual,’ he at length muttered. 

‘Many people there?’ 

‘Usual sort of number.’ 

‘What did they look like?’ 

Soames tried to visualise them. ‘They all,’ he presently re- 
membered, ‘looked very like one another.’ 

My mind took a fearsome leap. ‘All dressed in Jaeger?’ 

‘Yes. I think so. Greyish-yellowish stuff.’ 

‘A sort of uniform?’ He nodded. ‘With a number on it, per- 
haps? — a number on a large disc of metal sewn on to the left 
sleeve? DKF 78,910 — that sort of thing?’ It was even so. 
‘And all of them — men and women alike — looking very well- 

[40] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

cared-for? very Utopian? and smelling rather strongly of car- 
bolic? and all of them quite hairless?’ I was right every time. 
Soames was only not sure whether the men and women were hair- 
less or shorn. ‘I hadn’t time to look at them very closely,’ he 
explained. 

‘No, of course not. But ’ 

‘They stared at me, I can tell you. I attracted a great deal of 
attention.’ At last he had done that! T think I rather scared 
them. They moved away whenever I came near. They fol- 
lowed me about at a distance, wherever I went. The men at the 
round desk in the middle seemed to have a sort of panic whenever 
I went to make inquiries.’ 

‘What did you do when you arrived?’ 

Well, he had gone straight to the catalogue, of course — to the 
S volumes, and had stood long before SN-SOF, unable to take 
this volume out of the shelf, because his heart was beating so. . . 
At first, he said, he wasn’t disappointed — he only thought there 
was some new arrangement. He went to the middle desk and 
asked where the catalogue of twentieth-century books was kept. 
He gathered that there was still only one catalogue. Again he 
looked up his name, stared at the three little pasted slips he had 
known so well. Then he went and sat down for a long time. . . 

‘And then,’ he droned, ‘I looked up the “Dictionary of Na- 
tional Biography” and some encyclopaedias. . . I went back to 
the middle desk and asked what was the best modern book on 
late nineteenth-century literature. They told me Mr. T. K. 

[41] 


SEVEN MEN 

Nup ton’s book was considered the best. I looked it up in the 
catalogue and filled in a form for it. It was brought to me. My 
name wasn’t in the index, but — Yes!’ he said with a sudden 
change of tone. ‘That’s what I’d forgotten. Where’s that bit 
of paper? Give it me back.’ 

I, too, had forgotten that cryptic screed. I found it fallen on 
the floor, and handed it to him. 

He smoothed it out, nodding and smiling at me disagreeably. 
‘I found myself glancing through Nupton’s book,’ he resumed. 
‘Not very easy reading. Some sort of phonetic spelling. . . All 
the modern books I saw were phonetic.’ 

‘Then I don’t want to hear any more, Soames, please.’ 

‘The proper names seemed all to be spelt in the old way. But 
for that, I mightn’t have noticed my own name.’ 

‘Your own name? Really? Soames, I’m very glad.’ 

‘And yours.’ 

‘No!’ 

‘I thought I should find you waiting here to-night. So I took 
the trouble to copy out the passage. Read it.’ 

I snatched the paper. Soames’ handwriting was character- 
istically dim. It, and the noisome spelling, and my excitement, 
made me all the slower to grasp what T. K. Nupton was driving 
at. 

The document lies before me at this moment. Strange that 
the words I here copy out for you were copied out for me by poor 
Soames just seventy-eight years hence. . . 

[42] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

From p. 234 of English Littracher 1890-1900’ bi T. K. Nup- 
ton, publishd bi th Stait, 1992: 

‘Fr egzarmpl, a riter ov th time, naimd Max Beerbohm, hoo 
woz stil alive in th twentieth senchri, rote a stauri in wich e 
pautraid an immajnari karrakter kauld “Enoch Soames” — a 
thurd-rait poit hoo beleevz imself a grate jeneus an maix a bargin 
with th Devvl in auder ter no wot posterriti thinx ov im! It iz a 
sumwot labud sattire but not without vallu az showing hou seri- 
usli the yung men ov th aiteen-ninetiz took themselvz. Nou that 
the littreri profeshn haz bin auganized az a departmnt of publik 
servis, our riters hav found their levvl an hav lernt ter doo their 
duti without thort ov th morro. “Th laibrer iz werthi ov hiz 
hire,” an that iz aul. Thank hewn we hav no Enoch Soameses 
amung us to-dai!’ 

I found that by murmuring the words aloud (a device which 
I commend to my reader) I was able to master them, little by 
little. The clearer they became, the greater was my bewilder- 
ment, my distress and horror. The whole thing was a night- 
mare. Afar, the great grisly background of what was in store 
for the poor dear art of letters; here, at the table, fixing on me a 
gaze that made me hot all over, the poor fellow whom — whom 
evidently . . . but no: whatever down-grade my character 
might take in coming years, I should never be such a brute as 
to 

Again I examined the screed. Tmmajnari’ — but here Soames 

[43] 


/ 


SEVEN MEN 

was, no more imaginary, alas! than I. And ‘labud’ — what on 
earth was that? (To this day, I have never made out that 
word.) ‘It’s all very — baffling,’ I at length stammered. 

Soames said nothing, but cruelly did not cease to look at 
me. 

‘Are you sure,’ I temporised, ‘quite sure you copied the thing 
out correctly?’ 

‘Quite.’ 

‘Well, then it’s this wretched Nupton who must have made — 
must be going to make — some idiotic mistake. . . Look here, 
Soames! you know me better than to suppose that I . . . After 
all, the name “Max Beerbolm” is not at all an uncommon one, 
and there must be several Enoch Soameses running around — or 
rather, “Enoch Soames” is a name that might occur to any one 
writing a story. And I don’t write stories: I’m an essayist, an 
observer, a recorder. . . I admit that it’s an extraordinary co- 
incidence. But you must see ’ 

‘I see the whole thing,’ said Soames quietly. And he added, 
with a touch of his old manner, but with more dignity than I 
had ever known in him, ‘ Parlous d’autre chose / 

I accepted that suggestion very promptly. I returned straight 
to the more immediate future. I spent most of the long evening 
in renewed appeals to Soames to slip away and seek refuge some- 
where. I remember saying at last that if indeed I was destined 
to write about him, the supposed ‘stauri’ had better have at least 
a happy ending. Soames repeated those last three words in a 

[44] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

tone of intense scorn. ‘In Life and in Art,’ he said, ‘all that mat- 
ters is an inevitable ending.’ 

‘But,’ I urged, more hopefully than I felt, ‘an ending that can 
be avoided isn't inevitable.’ 

‘You aren’t an artist,’ he rasped. ‘And you’re so hopelessly 
not an artist that, so far from being able to imagine a thing and 
make it seem true, you’re going to make even a true thing seem 
as if you’d made it up. You’re a miserable bungler. And it’s 
like my luck.’ 

I protested that the miserable bungler was not I — was not go- 
ing to be I — but T. K. Nupton; and we had a rather heated 
argument, in the thick of which it suddenly seemed to me that 
Soames saw he was in the wrong: he had quite physically cow- 
ered. But I wondered why — and now I guessed with a cold 
throb just why — he stared so, past me. The bringer of that ‘in- 
evitable ending’ filled the doorway. 

I managed to turn in my chair and to say, not without a sem- 
blance of lightness, ‘Aha, come in!’ Dread was indeed rather 
blunted in me by his looking so absurdly like a villain in a melo- 
drama. The sheen of his tilted hat and of his shirt-front, the 
repeated twists he was giving to his moustache, and most of all 
the magnificence of his sneer, gave token that he was there only to 
be foiled. 

He was at our table in a stride. ‘I am sorry,’ he sneered 
witheringly, ‘to break up your pleasant party, but — ’ 

‘You don’t: you complete it,’ I assured him. ‘Mr. Soames 

[ 45 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

and I want to have a little talk with you. Won’t you sit? Mr. 
Soames got nothing — frankly nothing — by his journey this after- 
noon. We don’t wish to say that the whole thing was a swindle 
— a common swindle. On the contrary, we believe you meant 
well. But of course the bargain, such as it was, is off.’ 

The Devil gave no verbal answer. He merely looked at 
Soames and pointed with rigid forefinger to the door. Soames 
was wretchedly rising from his chair when, with a desperate 
quick gesture, I swept together two dinner-knives that were on 
the table, and laid their blades across each other. The Devil 
stepped sharp back against the table behind him, averting his 
face and shuddering. 

‘You are not superstitious!’ he hissed. 

‘Not at all,” I smiled. 

‘Soames!’ he said as to an underling, but without turning his 
face, ‘put those knives straight!’ 

With an inhibitive gesture to my friend, ‘Mr. Soames,’ I said 
emphatically to the Devil, ‘is a Catholic Diabolist’ ; but my poor 
friend did the Devil’s bidding, not mine; and now, with his mas- 
ter’s eyes again fixed on him, he arose, he shuffled past me. I 
tried to speak. It was he that spoke. ‘Try,’ was the prayer he 
threw back at me as the Devil pushed him roughly out through 
the door, ‘try to make them know that I did exist!’ 

In another instant I too was through that door. I stood star- 
ing all ways — up the street, across it, down it. There was moon- 
light and lamplight, but there was not Soames nor that other. 

[46] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

Dazed, I stood there. Dazed, I turned back, at length, into 
the little room; and I suppose I paid Berthe or Rose for my din- 
ner and luncheon, and for Soames’ : I hope so, for I never went 
to the Vingtieme again. Ever since that night I have avoided 
Greek Street altogether. And for years I did not set foot even 
in Soho Square, because on that same night it was there that I 
paced and loitered, long and long, with some such dull sense of 
hope as a man has in not straying far from the place where he has 
lost something. . . ‘Round and round the shutter’d Square’ — 
that line came back to me on my lonely beat, and with it the whole 
stanza, ringing in my brain and bearing in on me how tragically 
different from the happy scene imagined by him was the poet’s 
actual experience of that prince in whom of all princes we should 
put not our trust. 

But — strange how the mind of an essayist, be it never so 
stricken, roves and ranges! — I remember pausing before a wide 
doorstep and wondering if perchance it was on this very one that 
the young De Quincey lay ill and faint while poor Ann flew as 
fast as her feet would carry her to Oxford Street, the ‘stony- 
hearted step-mother’ of them both, and came back bearing that 
‘glass of port wine and spices’ but for which he might, so he 
thought, actually have died. Was this the very doorstep that the 
old De Quincey used to revisit in homage? I pondered Ann’s 
fate, the cause of her sudden vanishing from the ken of her boy- 
friend; and presently I blamed myself for letting the past over- 
ride the present. Poor vanished Soames ! 


[47] 


SEVEN MEN 

And for myself, too, I began to be troubled. What had I bet- 
ter do? Would there be a hue and cry — Mysterious Disappear- 
ance of an Author, and all that? He had last been seen lunching 
and dining in my company. Hadn’t I better get a hansom and 
drive straight to Scotland Yard? . . . They would think I was 
a lunatic. After all, I reassured myself, London was a very 
large place, and one very dim figure might easily drop out of it 
unobserved — now especially, in the blinding glare of the near 
Jubilee. Better say nothing at all, I thought. 

And I was right. Soames’ disappearance made no stir at all. 
He was utterly forgotten before any one, so far as I am aware, 
noticed that he was no longer hanging around. Now and again 
some poet or prosaist may have said to another, ‘What has become 
of that man Soames?’ but I never heard any such question asked. 
The solicitor through whom he was paid his annuity may be 
presumed to have made inquiries, but no echo of these resounded. 
There was something rather ghastly to me in the general uncon- 
sciousness that Soames had existed, and more than once I caught 
myself wondering whether Nupton, that babe unborn, were go- 
ing to be right in thinking him a figment of my brain. 

In that extract from Nupton’s repulsive book there is one point 
which perhaps puzzles you. How is it that the author, though 
I have here mentioned him by name and have quoted the exact 
words he is going to write, is not going to grasp the obvious corol- 
lary that I have invented nothing? The answer can be only this : 
Nupton will not have read the later passages of this memoir. 

[48] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

Such lack of thoroughness is a serious fault in any one who un- 
dertakes to do scholar’s work. And I hope these words will meet 
the eye of some contemporary rival to Nupton and be the undoing 
of Nupton. 

I like to think that some time between 1992 and 1997 somebody 
will have looked up this memoir, and will have forced on the 
world his inevitable and startling conclusions. And I have rea- 
sons for believing that this will be so. You realise that the read- 
ing-room into which Soames was projected by the Devil was in 
all respects precisely as it will be on the afternoon of June 3, 
1997. You realise, therefore, that on that afternoon, when it 
comes round, there the self-same crowd will be, and there Soames 
too will be, punctually, he and they doing precisely what they 
did before. Recall now Soames’ account of the sensation he 
made. You may say that the mere difference of his costume was 
enough to make him sensational in that uniformed crowd. You 
wouldn’t say so if you had ever seen him. I assure you that in 
no period could Soames be anything but dim. The fact that 
people are going to stare at him, and follow him around, and 
-seem afraid of him, can be explained only on the hypothesis that 
they will somehow have been prepared for his ghostly visitation. 
They will have been awfully waiting to see whether he really 
would come. And when he does come the effect will of course 
be — awful. 

An authentic, guaranteed, proven ghost, but— only a ghost, 
alas! Only that. In his first visit, Soames was a creature of 

> [49] 


SEVEN MEN 

flesh and blood, whereas the creatures into whose midst he was 
projected were but ghosts, I take it — solid, palpable, vocal, but 
unconscious and automatic ghosts, in a building that was itself 
an illusion. Next time, that building and those creatures will 
be real. It is of Soames that there will be but the semblance. I 
wish I could think him destined to revisit the world actually, 
physically, consciously. I wish he had this one brief escape, this 
one small treat, to look forward to. I never forget him for long. 
He is where he is, and forever. The more rigid moralists among 
you may say he has only himself to blame. For my part, I think 
he has been very hardly used. It is well that vanity should be 
chastened; and Enoch Soames’ vanity was, I admit, above the 
average, and called for special treatment. But there was no 
need for vindictiveness. You say he contracted to pay the price 
he is paying; yes; but I maintain that he was induced to do so by 
fraud. Well-informed in all things, the Devil must have known 
that my friend would gain nothing by his visit to futurity. The 
whole thing was a very shabby trick. The more I think of it, the 
more detestable the Devil seems to me. 

Of him I have caught sight several times, here and there, since 
that day at the Vingtieme. Only once, however, have I seen him 
at close quarters. This was in Paris. I was walking, one after- 
noon, along the Rue d’Antin, when I saw him advancing from the 
opposite direction — over-dressed as ever, and swinging an ebony 
cane, and altogether behaving as though the whole pavement 
belonged to him. At thought of Enoch Soames and the myriads 
[So] 


ENOCH SOAMES 

of other sufferers eternally in this brute’s dominion, a great cold 
wrath filled me, and I drew myself up to my full height. But 
— well, one is so used to nodding and smiling in the street to any- 
body whom one knows that the action becomes almost independ- 
ent of oneself : to prevent it requires a very sharp effort and great 
presence of mind. I was miserably aware, as I passed the Devil, 
that I nodded and smiled to him. And my shame was the deeper 
and hotter because he, if you please, stared straight at me with 
the utmost haughtiness. 

To be cut — deliberately cut — by him ! I was, I still am, furi- 
ous at having had that happen to me. 























- 
















































' 













. 




































































































■ 























HILARY MALTBY AND 
STEPHEN BRAXTON 



HILARY MALTBY AND STEPHEN BRAXTON 


P EOPLE still go on comparing Thackeray and Dickens, 
quite cheerfully. But the fashion of comparing Maltby 
and Braxton went out so long ago as 1795. No, I am 
wrong. But anything that happened in the bland old days be- 
fore the war does seem to be a hundred more years ago than 
actually it is. The year I mean is the one in whose spring-time 
we all went bicycling (O thrill!) in Battersea Park, and ladies 
wore sleeves that billowed enormously out from their shoulders, 
and Lord Rosebery was Prime Minister. 

In that Park, in that spring-time, in that sea of sleeves, there 
was almost as much talk about the respective merits of Braxton 
and Maltby as there was about those of Rudge and Humber. 
For the benefit of my younger readers, and perhaps, so feeble is 
human memory, for the benefit of their elders too, let me state 
that Rudge and Humber were rival makers of bicycles, that 
Hilary Maltby was the author of ‘Ariel in Mayfair/ and Stephen 
Braxton of ‘A Faun on the Cotswolds.’ 

‘Which do you think is really the best — “Ariel” or “A Faun”?’ 
Ladies were always asking one that question. ‘Oh, well, you 
know, the two are so different. It’s really very hard to compare 

[ 55 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

them.’ One was always giving that answer. One was not very 
brilliant perhaps. 

The vogue of the two novels lasted throughout the summer. 
As both were ‘firstlings/ and Great Britain had therefore noth- 
ing else of Braxton’s or Maltby’s to fall back on, the horizon was 
much scanned for what Maltby, and what Braxton, would give 
us next. In the autumn Braxton gave us his secondling. It was 
an instantaneous failure. No more was he compared with 
Maltby. In the spring of ’96 came Maltby’s secondling. Its 
failure was instantaneous. Maltby might once more have been 
compared with Braxton. But Braxton was now forgotten. So 
was Maltby. 

This was not kind. This was not just. Maltby’s first novel, 
and Braxton’s, had brought delight into many thousands of 
homes. People should have paused to say of Braxton “Perhaps 
his third novel will be better than his second,” and to say as much 
for Maltby. I blame people for having given no sign of want- 
ing a third from either; and I blame them with the more zest 
because neither ‘A Faun on the Cotswolds’ nor ‘Ariel in May- 
fair’ was a merely popular book: each, I maintain, was a good 
book. I don’t go so far as to say that the one had ‘more of natural 
magic, more of British woodland glamour, more of the sheer 
joy of life in it than anything since “As You Like It,” ’ though 
Higsby went so far as this in the Daily Chronicle ; nor can I 
allow the claim made for the other by Grigsby in the Globe that 
‘for pungency of satire there has been nothing like it since Swift 

[56] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

v ■. / 

laid down his pen, and for sheer sweetness and tenderness of 
feeling — ex forti dulcedo — nothing to be mentioned in the same 
breath with it since the lute fell from the tired hand of Theocri- 
tus.’ These were foolish exaggerations. But one must not con- 
demn a thing because it has been over-praised. Maltby’s 
‘Ariel’ was a delicate, brilliant work ; and Braxton’s ‘Faun,’ crude 
though it was in many ways, had yet a genuine power and beauty. 
This is not a mere impression remembered from early youth. 
It is the reasoned and seasoned judgment of middle age. Both 
books have been out of print for many years; but I secured a sec- 
ond-hand copy of each not long ago, and found them well worth 
reading again. 

From the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the outbreak of the 
war, current literature did not suffer from any lack of fauns. 
But when Braxton’s first book appeared fauns had still an air of 
novelty about them. We had not yet tired of them and their 
hoofs and their slanting eyes and their way of coming suddenly 
out of woods to wean quiet English villages from respectability. 
We did tire later. But Braxton’s faun, even now, seems to me 
an admirable specimen of his class — wild and weird, earthy, 
goat-like, almost convincing. And I find myself convinced al- 
together by Braxton’s rustics. I admit that I do not know much 
about rustics, except from novels. But I plead that the little I 
do know about them by personal observation does not confirm 
much of what the many novelists have taught me. I plead also 
that Braxton may well have been right about the rustics of Glou- 

[57] 


SEVEN MEN 

cestershire because he was (as so many interviewers recorded of 
him in his brief heyday) the son of a yeoman farmer at Far Oak- 
ridge, and his boyhood had been divided between that village and 
the Grammar School at Stroud. Not long ago I happened to be 
staying in the neighbourhood, and came across several villagers 
who might, I assure you, have stepped straight out of Braxton’s 
pages. For that matter, Braxton himself, whom I met often in 
the spring of ’95, might have stepped straight out of his own 
pages. 

I am guilty of having wished he would step straight back into 
them. He was a very surly fellow, very rugged and gruff. He 
was the antithesis of pleasant little Maltby. I used to think 
that perhaps he would have been less unamiable if success had 
come to him earlier. He was thirty years old when his book was 
published, and had had a very hard time since coming to London 
at the age of sixteen. Little Maltby was a year older, and so 
had waited a year longer; but then, he had waited under a com- 
fortable roof at Twickenham, emerging into the metropolis for 
no grimmer purpose than to sit and watch the fashionable riders 
and walkers in Rotten Row, and then going home to write a 
little, or to play lawn-tennis with the young ladies of Twicken- 
ham. He had been the only child of his parents (neither of 
whom, alas, survived to take pleasure in their darling’s sudden 
fame). He had now migrated from Twickenham and taken 
rooms in Ryder Street. Had he ever shared with Braxton the 
bread of adversity — but no, I think he would in any case have 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

been pleasant. And conversely I cannot imagine that Braxton 
would in any case have been so. 

No one seeing the two rivals together, no one meeting them 
at Mr. Hookworth’s famous luncheon parties in the Authors’ 
Club, or at Mrs. Foster-Dugdale’s not less famous garden parties 
in Greville Place, would have supposed off-hand that the pair 
had a single point in common. Dapper little Maltby — blond, 
bland, diminutive Maltby, with his monocle and his gardenia; 
big black Braxton, with his lanky hair and his square blue jaw 
and his square sallow forehead. Canary and crow. Maltby 
had a perpetual chirrup of amusing small-talk. Braxton was 
usually silent, but very well worth listening to whenever he did 
croak. He had distinction, I admit it ; the distinction of one who 
steadfastly refuses to adapt himself to surroundings. He stood 
out. He awed Mr. Hookworth. Ladies were always asking 
one another, rather intently, what they thought of him. One 
could imagine that Mr. Foster-Dugdale, had he come home from 
the City to attend the garden parties, might have regarded him 
as one from whom Mrs. Foster-Dugdale should be shielded. 
But the casual observer of Braxton and Maltby at Mrs. Foster- 
Dugdale’s or elsewhere was wrong in supposing that the two 
were totally unlike. He overlooked one simple and obvious 
point. This was that he had met them both at Mrs. Foster- 
Dugdale’s or elsewhere. Wherever they were invited, there cer- 
tainly, there punctually, they would be. They were both of 
them gluttons for the fruits and signs of their success. 


[59] 


SEVEN MEN 

Interviewers and photographers had as little reason as had 
hostesses to complain of two men so earnestly and assiduously 
‘on the make’ as Maltby and Braxton. Maltby, for all his 
sparkle, was earnest; Braxton, for all his arrogance, assiduous. 

‘A Faun on the Cotswolds’ had no more eager eulogist than 
the author of ‘Ariel in Mayfair.’ When any one praised his 
work, Maltby would lightly disparage it in comparison with 
Braxton’s — ‘Ah, if I could write like thatV Maltby won golden 
opinions in this way. Braxton, on the other hand, would let 
slip no opportunity for sneering at Maltby’s work — ‘gimcrack,’ 
as he called it. This was not good for Maltby. Different men, 
different methods. 

‘The Rape of the Lock’ was ‘gimcrack,’ if you care to call it 
so; but it was a delicate, brilliant work; and so, I repeat, was 
Maltby’s ‘Ariel.’ Absurd to compare Maltby with Pope? I 
am not so sure. I have read ‘Ariel,’ but have never read ‘The 
Rape of the Lock.’ Braxton’s opprobrious term for ‘Ariel’ may 
not, however, have been due to jealousy alone. Braxton had im- 
agination, and his rival did not soar above fancy. But the point 
is that Maltby’s fancifulness went far and well. In telling how 
Ariel re-embodied himself from thin air, leased a small house in 
Chesterfield Street, was presented at a Levee, played the part 
of good fairy in a matter of true love not running smooth, and 
worked meanwhile all manner of amusing changes among the 
aristocracy before he vanished again, Maltby showed a very 
pretty range of ingenuity. In one respect, his work was a more 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

surprising achievement than Braxton’s. For whereas Braxton 
had been born and bred among his rustics, Maltby knew his 
aristocrats only through Thackeray, through the photographs 
and paragraphs in the newspapers, and through those passionate 
excursions of his to Rotten Row. Yet I found his aristocrats as 
convincing as Braxton’s rustics. It is true that I may have been 
convinced wrongly. That is a point which I could settle only 
by experience. I shift my ground, claiming for Maltby’s aris- 
tocrats just this : that they pleased me very much. 

Aristocrats, when they are presented solely through a novelist’s 
sense of beauty, do not satisfy us. They may be as beautiful as 
all that, but, for fear of thinking ourselves snobbish, we won’t 
believe it. We do believe it, however, and revel in it, when the 
novelist saves his face and ours by a pervading irony in the treat- 
ment of what he loves. The irony must, mark you, be pervading 
and obvious. Disraeli’s great ladies and lords won’t do, for his 
irony was but latent in his homage, and thus the reader feels 
himself called on to worship and in duty bound to scoff. All’s 
well, though, when the homage is latent in the irony. Thack- 
eray, inviting us to laugh and frown over the follies of Mayfair, 
enables us to reel with him in a secret orgy of veneration for 
those fools. 

Maltby, too, in his measure, enabled us to reel thus. That is 
mainly why, before the end of April, his publisher was in a posi- 
tion to state that ‘the Seventh Large Impression of “Ariel in 
Mayfair” is almost exhausted.’ Let it be put to our credit, how- 

[61] 


SEVEN MEN 

ever, that at the same moment Braxton’s publisher had ‘the 
honour to inform the public that an Eighth Large Impression of 
“A Faun on the Cotswolds” is in instant preparation.’ 

Indeed, it seemed impossible for either author to outvie the 
other in success and glory. Week in, week out, you saw can- 
celled either’s every momentary advantage. A neck-and-neck 
race. As thus: — Maltby appears as a Celebrity At Home in the 
World (Tuesday). Ha! No, Vanity Fair (Wednesday) has a 
perfect presentment of Braxton by ‘Spy.’ Neck-and-neck! No, 
Vanity Fair says ‘the subject of next week’s cartoon will be Mr. 
Hilary Maltby.’ Maltby wins! No, next week Braxton’s in 
the World. 

Throughout May I kept, as it were, my eyes glued to my field- 
glasses. On the first Monday in June I saw that which drew 
from me a hoarse ejaculation. 

Let me explain that always on Monday mornings at this time 
of year, when I opened my daily paper, I looked with respectful 
interest to see what bevy of the great world had been entertained 
since Saturday at Keeb Hall. The list was always august and 
inspiring. Statecraft and Diplomacy were well threaded there 
with mere Lineage and mere Beauty, with Royalty sometimes, 
with mere Wealth never, with privileged Genius now and then. 
A noble composition always. It was said that the Duke of Hert- 
fordshire cared for nothing but his collection of birds’ eggs, and 
that the collections of guests at Keeb were formed entirely by 
his young Duchess. It was said that he had climbed trees in 
[62] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

every corner of every continent. The Duchess’ hobby was easier. 
She sat aloft and beckoned desirable specimens up. 

The list published on that first Monday in June began or- 
dinarily enough, began with the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador 
and the Portuguese Minister. Then came the Duke and Duch- 
ess of Mull, followed by four lesser Peers (two of them Procon- 
suls, however) with their Peeresses, three Peers without their 
Peeresses, four Peeresses without their Peers, and a dozen bearers 
of courtesy-titles with or without their wives or husbands. The 
rear was brought up by ‘Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mr. Henry Chaplin, 
and Mr. Hilary Maltby.’ 

Youth tends to look at the darker side of things. I confess 
that my first thought was for Braxton. 

I forgave and forgot his faults of manner. Youth is generous. 
It does not criticise a strong man stricken. 

And anon, so habituated was I to the parity of those two strik- 
ers, I conceived that there might be some mistake. Daily news- 
papers are printed in a hurry. Might not ‘Henry Chaplin’ be a 
typographical error for ‘Stephen Braxton’? I went out and 
bought another newspaper. But Mr. Chaplin’s name was in that 
too. 

‘Patience!’ I said to myself. ‘Braxton crouches only to spring. 
He will be at Keeb Hall on Saturday next.’ 

My mind was free now to dwell with pleasure on Maltby’s 
great achievement. I thought of writing to congratulate him, 
but feared this might be in bad taste. I did, however, write ask- 

[63] 


SEVEN MEN 

ing him to lunch with me. He did not answer my letter. I 
was, therefore, all the more sorry, next Monday, at not finding 
‘and Mr. Stephen Braxton’ in Keeb’s week-end catalogue. 

A few days later I met Mr. Hookworth. He mentioned that 
Stephen Braxton had left town. ‘He has taken,’ said Hook- 
worth, ‘a delightful bungalow on the east coast. He has gone 
there to work? He added that he had a great liking for Braxton 
— ‘a man utterly unspoilt .’ I inferred that he, too, had written to 
Maltby and received no answer. 

That butterfly did not, however, appear to be hovering from 
flower to flower in the parterres of rank and fashion. In the 
daily lists of guests at dinners, receptions, dances, balls, the name 
of Maltby figured never. Maltby had not caught on. 

Presently I heard that he, too, had left town. I gathered that 
he had gone quite early in June — quite soon after Keeb. No- 
body seemed to know where he was. My own theory was that 
he had taken a delightful bungalow on the west coast, to balance 
Braxton. Anyhow, the parity of the two strivers was now some- 
what re-established. 

In point of fact, the disparity had been less than I supposed. 
While Maltby was at Keeb, there Braxton was also — in a sense. 

It was a strange story. I did not hear it at the time. No- 
body did. I heard it seventeen years later. I heard it in Lucca. 

Little Lucca I found so enchanting that, though I had only a 
day or two to spare, I stayed there a whole month. I formed the 

[64] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

habit of walking, every morning, round that high-pitched path 
which girdles Lucca, that wide and tree-shaded path from which 
one looks down over the city wall at the fertile plains beneath 
Lucca. There were never many people there ; but the few who 
did come came daily, so that I grew to like seeing them and took 
a mild personal interest in them. 

One of them was an old lady in a wheeled chair. She was 
not less than seventy years old, and might or might not have once 
been beautiful. Her chair was slowly propelled by an Italian 
woman. She herself was obviously Italian. Not so, however, 
the little gentleman who walked assiduously beside her. Him I 
guessed to be English. He was a very stout little gentleman, 
with gleaming spectacles and a full blond beard, and he seemed 
to radiate cheerfulness. I thought at first that he might be the 
old lady’s resident physician ; but no, there was something subtly 
un-professional about him: I became sure that his constancy 
was gratuitous, and his radiance real. And one day, I know not 
how, there dawned on me a suspicion that he was — who? — some 
one I had known — some writer — what’s-his-name — something 
with an M — Maltby — Hilary Maltby of the long-ago! 

At sight of him on the morrow this suspicion hardened almost 
to certainty. I wished I could meet him alone and ask him if I 
were not right, and what he had been doing all these years, and 
why he had left England. He was always with the old lady. 
It was only on my last day in Lucca that my chance came. 

I had just lunched, and was seated on a comfortable bench 

[ 65 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

outside my hotel, with a cup of coffee on the table before me, 
gazing across the faded old sunny piazza and wondering what 
to do with my last afternoon. It was then that I espied yonder 
the back of the putative Maltby. I hastened forth to him. He 
was buying some pink roses, a great bunch of them, from a 
market-woman under an umbrella. He looked very blank, he 
flushed greatly, when I ventured to accost him. He admitted 
that his name was Hilary Maltby. I told him my own name, 
and by degrees he remembered me. He apologised for his con- 
fusion. He explained that he had not talked English, had not 
talked to an Englishman, ‘for — oh, hundreds of years.’ He said 
that he had, in the course of his long residence in Lucca, seen 
two or three people whom he had known in England, but that 
none of them had recognised him. He accepted (but as though 
he were embarking on the oddest adventure in the world) my in- 
vitation that he should come and sit down and take coffee with 
me. He laughed with pleasure and surprise at finding that he 
could still speak his native tongue quite fluently and idiomati- 
cally. ‘I know absolutely nothing,’ he said, ‘about England 
nowadays — except from stray references to it in the Corriere 
della Sera; nor did he show the faintest desire that I should 
enlighten him. ‘England,’ he mused, ‘ — how it all comes back 
to me!’ 

‘But not you to it?’ 

‘Ah, no indeed,’ he said gravely, looking at the roses which he 

[ 66 ] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

had laid carefully on the marble table. ‘I am the happiest of 
men.’ 

He sipped his coffee, and stared out across the piazza, out 
beyond it into the past. 

‘I am the happiest of men,’ he repeated. I plied him with the 
spur of silence. 

‘And I owe it all to having once yielded to a bad impulse. 
Absurd, the threads our destinies hang on!’ 

Again I plied him with that spur. As it seemed not to prick 
him, I repeated the words he had last spoken. ‘For instance?’ 
I added. 

‘Take,’ he said, ‘a certain evening in the spring of ’95. If, on 
that evening, the Duchess of Hertfordshire had had a bad cold; 
or if she had decided that it wouldn't be rather interesting to go 
on to that party — that Annual Soiree, I think it was — of the 
Inkwomen’s Club; or again — to go a step further back — if she 
hadn’t ever written that one little poem, and if it hadn't been 
printed in “The Gentlewoman,” and if the Inkwomen’s com- 
mittee hadn't instantly and unanimously elected her an Honorary 
Vice-President because of that one little poem; or if — well, if 
a million-and-one utterly irrelevant things hadn’t happened, 
don’t-you-know, I shouldn’t be here ... I might be there? he 
smiled, with a vague gesture indicating England. 

‘Suppose,’ he went on, ‘I hadn’t been invited to that Annual 
Soiree; or suppose that other fellow, — ’ 


[67] 


SEVEN MEN 

‘Braxton?’ I suggested. I had remembered Braxton at the 
moment of recognising Maltby. 

‘Suppose he hadn’t been asked. . . But of course we both were. 
It happened that I was the first to be presented to the Duchess. . . 
It was a great moment. I hoped I should keep my head. She 
wore a tiara. I had often seen women in tiaras, at the Opera. 
But I had never talked to a woman in a tiara. Tiaras were 
symbols to me. Eyes are just a human feature. I fixed mine on 
the Duchess’s. I kept my head by not looking at hers. I be- 
haved as one human being to another. She seemed very intel- 
ligent. We got on very well. Presently she asked whether I 
should think her very bold if she said how perfectly divine she 
thought my book. I said something about doing my best, and 
asked with animation whether she had read “A Faun on the 
Cotswolds.” She had. She said it was too wonderful, she said 
it was too great. If she hadn’t been a Duchess, I might have 
thought her slightly hysterical. Her innate good-sense quickly 
reasserted itself. She used her great power. With a wave of 
her magic wand she turned into a fact the glittering possibility 
that had haunted me. She asked me down to Keeb. 

‘She seemed very pleased that I would come. Was I, by any 
chance, free on Saturday week? She hoped there would be some 
amusing people to meet me. Could I come by the 3.30? It 
was only an hour-and-a-quarter from Victoria. On Saturday 
there were always compartments reserved for people coming to 
Keeb by the 3.30. She hoped I would bring my bicycle with 
[ 68 ] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

me. She hoped I wouldn’t find it very dull. She hoped I 
wouldn’t forget to come. She said how lovely it must be to 
spend one’s life among clever people. She supposed I knew 
everybody here to-night. She asked me to tell her who every- 
body was. She asked who was the tall, dark man, over there. I 
told her it was Stephen Braxton. She said they had promised 
to introduce her to him. She added that he looked rather won- 
derful. “Oh, he is, very,” I assured her. She turned to me 
with a sudden appeal : “Do you think, if I took my courage in 
both hands and asked him, he’d care to come to Keeb?” 

‘I hesitated. It wouM be easy to say that Satan answered for 
me ; easy but untrue ; it was I that babbled : “Well — as a matter 
of fact — since you ask me — if I were you — really I think you’d 
better not. He’s very odd in some ways. He has an extraor- 
dinary hatred of sleeping out of London. He has the real 
Gloucestershire love of London. At the same time, he’s very 
shy; and if you asked him he wouldn’t very well know how to 
refuse. I think it would be kinder not to ask him.” 

‘At that moment, Mrs. Wilpham — the President — loomed up 
to us, bringing Braxton. He bore himself well. Rough dignity 
with a touch of mellowness. I daresay you never saw him smile. 
He smiled gravely down at the Duchess, while she talked in 
her pretty little quick humble way. He made a great impres- 
sion. 

‘What I had done was not merely base : it was very dangerous. 
I was in terror that she might rally him on his devotion to Lon- 

[69] 


SEVEN MEN 

don. I didn’t dare to move away. I was immensely relieved 
when at length she said she must be going. 

‘Braxton seemed loth to relax his grip on her hand at parting. 
I feared she wouldn’t escape without uttering that invitation. 
But all was well. . . In saying good night to me, she added in 
a murmur, “Don’t forget Keeb — Saturday week — the 3. 30.” 
Merely an exquisite murmur. But Braxton heard it. I knew, 
by the diabolical look he gave me, that Braxton had heard it. . . 
If he hadn’t, I shouldn’t be here. 

‘Was I a prey to remorse? Well, in the days between that 
Soiree and that Saturday, remorse often claimed me, but rapture 
wouldn’t give me up. Arcady, Olympus, the right people, at 
last! I hadn’t realised how good my book was — not till it got 
me this guerdon; not till I got it this huge advertisement. I 
foresaw how pleased my publisher would be. In some great 
houses, I knew, it was possible to stay without any one knowing 
you had been there. But the Duchess of Hertfordshire hid her 
light under no bushel. Exclusive she was, but not of publicity. 
Next to Windsor Castle, Keeb Hall was the most advertised 
house in all England. 

‘Meanwhile, I had plenty to do. I rather thought of engaging 
a valet, but decided that this wasn’t necessary. On the other 
hand, I felt a need for three new summer suits, and a new evening 
suit, and some new white waistcoats. Also a smoking suit. And 
had any man ever stayed at Keeb without a dressing-case? 
Hitherto I had been content with a pair of wooden brushes, and 

[70] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

so forth. I was afraid these would appal the footman who un- 
packed my things. I ordered, for his sake, a large dressing-case, 
with my initials engraved throughout it. It looked compromis- 
ingly new when it came to me from the shop. I had to kick it 
industriously, and throw it about and scratch it, so as to avert 
possible suspicion. The tailor did not send my things home till 
the Friday evening. I had to sit up late, wearing the new suits 
in rotation. ' ii J j 

‘Next day, at Victoria, I saw strolling on the platform many 
people, male and female, who looked as if they were going to 
Keeb — tall, cool, ornate people who hadn’t packed their own 
things and had reached Victoria in broughams. I was ornate, 
but not tall nor cool. My porter was rather off-hand in his 
manner as he wheeled my things along to the 3.30. I asked 
severely if there were any compartments reserved for people 
going to stay with the Duke of Hertfordshire. This worked an 
instant change in him. Having set me in one of those shrines, 
he seemed almost loth to accept a tip. A snob, I am afraid. 

‘A selection of the tall, the cool, the ornate, the intimately ac- 
quainted with one another, soon filled the compartment. There 
I was, and I think they felt they ought to try to bring me into 
the conversation. As they were all talking about a cotillion of 
the previous night, I shouldn’t have been able to shine. I gazed 
out of the window, with middle-class aloofness. Presently the 
talk drifted on to the topic of bicycles. But by this time it was 
too late for me to come in. 


[71] 


SEVEN MEN 

‘I gazed at the squalid outskirts of London as they flew by. I 
doubted, as I listened to my fellow-passengers, whether I should 
be able to shine at Keeb. I rather wished I were going to spend 
the week-end at one of those little houses with back-gardens 
beneath the railway-line. I was filled with fears. 

‘For shame! thought I. Was I nobody? Was the author of 
“Ariel in Mayfair” nobody? 

‘I reminded myself how glad Braxton would be if he knew of 
my faint-heartedness. I thought of Braxton sitting, at this mo- 
ment, in his room in Clifford’s Inn and glowering with envy of 
his hated rival in the 3.30. And after all, how enviable I was! 
My spirits rose. I would acquit myself well. . . 

‘I much admired the scene at the little railway station where 
we alighted. It was like a fete by Lancret. I knew from the 
talk of my fellow-passengers that some people had been going 
down by an earlier train, and that others were coming by a later. 
But the 3.30 had brought a full score of us. Us! That was the 
final touch of beauty. 

‘Outside there were two broughams, a landau, dog-carts, a 
phaeton, a wagonette, I know not what. But almost everybody, 
it seemed, was going to bicycle. Lady Rodfitten said she was 
going to bicycle. Year after year, I had seen that famous 
Countess riding or driving in the Park. I had been told at 
fourth hand that she had a masculine intellect and could make 
and unmake Ministries. She was nearly sixty now, a trifle dyed 
and stout and weather-beaten, but still tremendously handsome, 

[72] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

and hard as nails. One would not have said she had grown 
older, but merely that she belonged now to a rather later period 
of the Roman Empire. I had never dreamed of a time when 
one roof would shelter Lady Rodfitten and me. Somehow, she 
struck my imagination more than any of these others — more than 
Count Deym, more than Mr. Balfour, more than the lovely Lady 
Thisbe Crowborough. 

‘I might have had a ducal vehicle all to myself, and should 
have liked that; but it seemed more correct that I should use my 
bicycle. On the other hand, I didn’t want to ride with all these 
people — a stranger in their midst. I lingered around the lug- 
gage till they were off, and then followed at a long distance. 

The sun had gone behind clouds. But I rode slowly, so as 
to be sure not to arrive hot. I passed, not without a thrill, 
through the massive open gates into the Duke’s park. A massive 
man with a cockade saluted me — hearteningly — from the door 
of the lodge. The park seemed endless. I came, at length, to 
a long straight avenue of elms that were almost blatantly im- 
memorial. At the end of it was — well, I felt like a gnat going 
to stay in a public building. 

‘If there had been turnstiles — IN and OUT — and a shilling to 
pay, I should have felt easier as I passed into that hall — that 
Palladio-Gargantuan hall. Some one, some butler or groom-of- 
the-chamber, murmured that her Grace was in the garden. I 
passed out through the great opposite doorway on to a wide 
spectacular terrace with lawns beyond. Tea was on the nearest 

[ 73 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

of these lawns. In the central group of people — some stand- 
ing, others sitting — I espied the Duchess. She sat pouring out 
tea, a deft and animated little figure. I advanced firmly down 
the steps from the terrace, feeling that all would be well so soon 
as I had reported myself to the Duchess. 

‘But I had a staggering surprise on my way to her. I espied 
in one of the smaller groups — whom d’you think? Braxton. 

‘I had no time to wonder how he had got there — time merely 
to grasp the black fact that he was there. 

‘The Duchess seemed really pleased to see me. She said it 
was too splendid of me to come. “You know Mr. Maltby?” 
she asked Lady Rodfitten, who exclaimed “Not Mr. Hilary 
Maltby?” with a vigorous grace that was overwhelming. Lady 
Rodfitten declared she was the greatest of my admirers; and I 
could well believe that in whatever she did she excelled all com- 
petitors. On the other hand, I found it hard to believe she was 
afraid of me. Yet I had her word for it that she was. 

‘Her womanly charm gave place now to her masculine grip. 
She eulogised me in the language of a seasoned reviewer on the 
staff of a long-established journal — wordy perhaps, but sound. 
I revered and loved her. I wished I could give her my un- 
divided attention. But, whilst I sat there, teacup in hand, be- 
tween her and the Duchess, part of my brain was fearfully con- 
cerned with that glimpse I had had of Braxton. It didn’t so 
much matter that he was here to halve my triumph. But sup- 
pose he knew what I had told the Duchess! And suppose he 

[74] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

had — no, surely if he had shown me up in all my meanness she 
wouldn’t have received me so very cordially. I wondered where 
she could have met him since that evening of the Inkwomen. 
I heard Lady Rodfitten concluding her review of “Ariel” with 
two or three sentences that might have been framed specially to 
give the publisher an easy “quote.” And then I heard myself 
asking mechanically whether she had read “A Faun on the Cots- 
wolds.” The Duchess heard me too. She turned from talking 
to other people and said “I did like Mr. Braxton so very much.” 

1 “Yes,” I threw out with a sickly smile, “I’m so glad you asked 
him to come.” 

‘ “But I didn’t ask him. I didn’t dare.” 

1 “But — but — surely he wouldn’t be — be here if — ” We 
stared at each other blankly. “Here?” she echoed, glancing at 
the scattered little groups of people on the lawn. I glanced too. 
I was much embarrassed. I explained that I had seen Braxton 
“standing just over there” when I arrived, and had supposed he 
was one of the people who came by the earlier train. “Well,” 
she said with a slightly irritated laugh, “you must have mistaken 
some one else for him.” She dropped the subject, talked to 
other people, and presently moved away. 

‘Surely, thought I, she didn’t suspect me of trying to make 
fun of her? On the other hand, surely she hadn’t conspired with 
Braxton to make a fool of me ? And yet, how could Braxton 
be here without an invitation, and without her knowledge? My 
brain whirled. One thing only was clear. I could not have 

[75] 


SEVEN MEN 

mistaken anybody for Braxton. There Braxton had stood — 
Stephen Braxton, in that old pepper-and-salt suit of his, with his 
red tie all askew, and without a hat — his hair hanging over his 
forehead. All this I had seen sharp and clean-cut. There he 
had stood, just beside one of the women who travelled down in 
the same compartment as I ; a very pretty woman in a pale blue 
dress; a tall woman — but I had noticed how small she looked be- 
side Braxton. This woman was now walking to and fro, yonder, 
with M. de Soveral. I had seen Braxton beside her as clearly 
as I now saw M. de Soveral. 

‘Lady Rodfitten was talking about India to a recent Viceroy. 
She seemed to have as firm a grip of India as of “Ariel.” I sat 
forgotten. I wanted to arise and wander off — in a vague search 
for Braxton. But I feared this might look as if I were angry 
at being ignored. Presently Lady Rodfitten herself arose, to 
have what she called her “annual look round.” She bade me 
come too, and strode off between me and the recent Viceroy, 
noting improvements that had been made in the grounds, suggest- 
ing improvements that might be made, indicating improvements 
that must be made. She was great on landscape-gardening. 
The recent Viceroy was less great on it, but great enough. I 
don’t say I walked forgotten: the eminent woman constantly 
asked my opinion ; but my opinion, though of course it always 
coincided with hers, sounded quite worthless, somehow. I 
longed to shine. I could only bother about Braxton. 

‘Lady Rodfitten’s voice sounded over-strong for the stillness 

[76] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

of evening. The shadows lengthened.' My spirits sank lower 
and lower, with the sun. I was a naturally cheerful person, 
but always, towards sunset, I had a vague sense of melan- 
choly: I seemed always to have grown weaker; morbid mis- 
givings would come to me. On this particular evening there 
was one such misgiving that crept in and out of me again and 
again ... a very horrible misgiving as to the nature of what I 
had seen. 

Well, dressing for dinner is a great tonic. Especially if one 
shaves. My spirits rose as I lathered my face. I smiled to my 
reflection in the mirror. The afterglow of the sun came through 
the window behind the dressing-table, but I had switched on all 
the lights. My new silver-topped bottles and things made a fine 
array. To-night I was going to shine, too. I felt I might yet 
be the life and soul of the party. Anyway, my new evening suit 
was without a fault. And meanwhile this new razor was per- 
fect. Having shaved “down,” I lathered myself again and pro- 
ceeded to shave “up.” It was then that I uttered a sharp sound 
and swung round on my heel. 

‘No one was there. Yet this I knew: Stephen Braxton had 
just looked over my shoulder. I had seen the reflection of his 
face beside mine — craned forward to the mirror. I had met his 
eyes. 

‘He had been with me. This I knew. 

<1 turned to look again at that mirror. One of my cheeks was 
all covered with blood. I stanched it with a towel. Three long 

[ 77 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

cuts where the razor had slipped and skipped. I plunged the 
towel into cold water and held it to my cheek. The bleeding 
went on — alarmingly. I rang the bell. No one came. I 
vowed I wouldn’t bleed to death for Braxton. I rang again. 
At last a very tall powdered footman appeared — more reproach- 
ful-looking than sympathetic, as though I hadn’t ordered that 
dressing-case specially on his behalf. He said he thought one of 
the housemaids would have some sticking-plaster. He was very 
sorry he was needed downstairs, but he would tell one of the 
housemaids. I continued to dab and to curse. The blood 
flowed less. I showed great spirit. I vowed Braxton should 
not prevent me from going down to dinner. 

‘But — a pretty sight I was when I did go down. Pale but 
determined, with three long strips of black sticking-plaster form- 
ing a sort of Z on my left cheek. Mr. Hilary Maltby at Keeb. 
Literature’s Ambassador. 

‘I don’t know how late I was. Dinner was in full swing. 
Some servant piloted me to my place. I sat down unobserved. 
The woman on either side of me was talking to her other neigh- 
bour. I was near the Duchess’ end of the table. Soup was served 
to me — that dark-red soup that you pour cream into — Bortsch. 
I felt it would steady me. I raised the first spoonful to my lips, 
and — my hand gave a sudden jerk. 

‘I was aware of two separate horrors — a horror that had been, 
a horror that was. Braxton had vanished. Not for more than 
an instant had he stood scowling at me from behind the opposite 

[78] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

diners. Not for more than the fraction of an instant. But he 
had left his mark on me. I gazed down with a frozen stare at 
my shirtfront, at my white waistcoat, both dark with Bortsch. 
I rubbed them with a napkin. I made them worse. 

‘I looked at my glass of champagne. I raised it carefully and 
drained it at one draught. It nerved me. But behind that 
shirtfront was a broken heart. 

‘The woman on my left was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. I 
don’t know 1 who was the woman on my right. She was the first 
to turn and see me. I thought it best to say something about my 
shirtfront at once. I said it to her sideways, without showing 
my left cheek. Her handsome eyes rested on the splashes. She 
said, after a moment’s thought, that they looked “rather gay.” 
She said she thought the eternal black and white of men’s evening 
clothes was “so very dreary.” She did her best. . . Lady Thisbe 
Crowborough did her best, too, I suppose; but breeding isn’t 
proof against all possible shocks: she visibly started at sight of 
me and my Z. I explained that I had cut myself shaving. I 
said, with an attempt at lightness, that shy men ought always to 
cut themselves shaving: it made such a good conversational open- 
ing. “But surely,” she said after a pause, “you don’t cut your- 
self on purpose?” She was an abysmal fool. I didn’t think so 
at the time. She was Lady Thisbe Crowborough. This fact 
hallowed her. That we didn’t get on at all well was a misfortune 
for which I blamed only myself and my repulsive appearance 
and — the unforgettable horror that distracted me. Nor did I 

[79] 


SEVEN MEN 

blame Lady Thisbe for turning rather soon to the man on her 
other side. 

‘The woman on my right was talking to the man on her other 
side; so that I was left a prey to secret memory and dread. I 
wasn’t wondering, wasn’t attempting to explain; I was merely 
remembering — and dreading. And — how odd one is! — on the 
top-layer of my consciousness I hated to be seen talking to no 
one. Mr. Maltby at Keeb. I caught the Duchess’ eye once or 
twice, and she nodded encouragingly, as who should say “You 
do look rather awful, and you do seem rather out of it, but I 
don’t for a moment regret having asked you to come.” Pres- 
ently I had another chance of talking. I heard myself talk. 
My feverish anxiety to please rather touched me. But I noticed 
that the eyes of my listener wandered. And yet I was sorry when 
the ladies went away. I had a sense of greater exposure. Men 
who hadn’t seen me saw me now. The Duke, as he came round 
to the Duchess’ end of the table, must have wondered who I was. 
But he shyly offered me his hand as he passed, and said it was 
so good of me to come. I had thought of slipping away to put 
on another shirt and waistcoat, but had decided that this would 
make me the more ridiculous. I sat drinking port — poison to 
me after champagne, but a lulling poison — and listened to noble- 
men with unstained shirtfronts talking about the Australian 
cricket match. . . 

‘Is Rubicon Bezique still played in England? There was a 
mania for it at that time. The floor of Keeb’s Palladio-Gargan- 
[80] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

tuan hall was dotted with innumerable little tables. I didn’t 
know how to play. My hostess told me I must “come and amuse 
the dear old Duke and Duchess of Mull,” and led me to a remote 
sofa on which an old gentleman had just sat down beside an old 
lady. They looked at me with a dim kind interest. My hostess 
had set me and left me on a small gilt chair in front of them. 
Before going she had conveyed to them loudly — one of them was 
very deaf — that I was “the famous writer.” It was a long time 
before they understood that I was not a political writer. The 
Duke asked me, after a troubled pause, whether I had known 
“old Mr. Abraham Hayward.” The Duchess said I was too 
young to have known Mr. Hayward, and asked if I knew her 
“clever friend Mr. Mallock.” I said I had just been reading 
Mr. Mallock’s new novel. I heard myself shouting a confused 
precis of the plot. The place where we were sitting was near 
the foot of the great marble staircase. I said how beautiful the 
staircase was. The Duchess of Mull said she had never cared 
very much for that staircase. The Duke, after a pause, said he 
had “often heard old Mr. Abraham Hayward hold a whole din- 
ner table.” There were long and frequent pauses — between 
which I heard myself talking loudly, frantically, sinking lower 
and lower in the esteem of my small audience. I felt like a man 
drowning under the eyes of an elderly couple who sit on the bank 
regretting that they can offer no assistance. Presently the Duke 
looked at his watch and said to the Duchess that it was “time to 
be thinking of bed.” 


[81] 


SEVEN MEN 

‘They rose, as it were from the bank, and left me, so to speak, 
under water. I watched them as they passed slowly out of sight 
up the marble staircase which I had mispraised. I turned and 
surveyed the brilliant, silent scene presented by the card-players. 

‘I wondered what old Mr. Abraham Hayward would have 
done in my place. Would he have just darted in among those 
tables and “held” them? I presumed that he would not have 
stolen silently away, quickly and cravenly away, up the marble 
staircase — as I did. 

‘I don’t know which was the greater, the relief or the humilia- 
tion of finding myself in my bedroom. Perhaps the humiliation 
was the greater. There, on a chair, was my grand new smok- 
ing-suit, laid out for me — what a mockery! Once I had foreseen 
myself wearing it in the smoking-room at a late hour — the centre 
of a group of eminent men entranced by the brilliancy of my 
conversation. And now — ! I was nothing but a small, dull, 
soup-stained, sticking-plastered, nerve-racked recluse. Nerves, 
yes. I assured myself that I had not seen — what I had seemed 
to see. All very odd, of course, and very unpleasant, but easily 
explained. Nerves. Excitement of coming to Keeb too much 
for me. A good night’s rest : that was all I needed. To-morrow 
I should laugh at myself. 

‘I wondered that I wasn’t tired physically. There my grand 
new silk pyjamas were, yet I felt no desire to go to bed . . . none 
while it was still possible for me to go. The little writing-table 
at the foot of my bed seemed to invite me. I had brought with 
[82] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

me in my portmanteau a sheaf of letters, letters that I had pur- 
posely left unanswered in order that I might answer them on 
Keeb Hall note-paper. These the footman had neatly laid 
beside the blotting-pad on that little writing-table at the foot of 
the bed. I regretted that the note-paper stacked there had no 
ducal coronet on it. What matter? The address sufficed. If 
I hadn’t yet made a good impression on the people who were 
staying here, I could at any rate make one on the people who 
weren’t. I sat down. I set to work. I wrote a prodigious num- 
ber of fluent and graceful notes. 

‘Some of these were to strangers who wanted my autograph. 
I was always delighted to send my autograph, and never per- 
functory in the manner of sending it. . . “Dear Madam,” I re- 
member writing to somebody that night, “were it not that you 
make your request for it so charmingly, I should hesitate to send 
you that which rarity alone can render valuable. — Yours truly, 
Hilary Maltby.” I remember reading this over and wondering 
whether the word “render” looked rather commercial. It was 
in the act of wondering thus that I raised my eyes from the note- 
paper and saw, through the bars of the brass bedstead, the naked 
sole of a large human foot — saw beyond it the calf of a great leg; 
a nightshirt; and the face of Stephen Braxton. I did not move. 

‘I thought of making a dash for the door, dashing out into 
the corridor, shouting at the top of my voice for help. I sat 
quite still. 

‘What kept me to my chair was the fear that if I tried to reach 

[83] 


SEVEN MEN 

the door Braxton would spring off the bed to intercept me. If 
I sat quite still perhaps he wouldn’t move. I felt that if he 
moved I should collapse utterly. 

‘I watched him, and he watched me. He lay there with his 
body half-raised, one elbow propped on the pillow, his jaw sunk 
on his breast; and from under his black brows he watched me 
steadily. 

‘No question of mere nerves now. That hope was gone. 
No mere optical delusion, this abiding presence. Here Braxton 
was. He and I were together in the bright, silent room. How 
long would he be content to watch me? 

‘Eleven nights ago he had given me one horrible look. It 
was this look that I had to meet, in infinite prolongation, now, not 
daring to shift my eyes. He lay as motionless as I sat. I did 
not hear him breathing, but I knew, by the rise and fall of his 
chest under his nightshirt, that he was breathing heavily. Sud- 
denly I started to my feet. For he had moved. He had raised 
one hand slowly. He was stroking his chin. And as he did so, 
and as he watched me, his mouth gradually slackened to a grin. 
It was worse, it was more malign, this grin, than the scowl that 
remained with it; and its immediate effect on me was an impulse 
that was as hard to resist as it was hateful. The window was 
open. It was nearer to me than the door. I could have reached 
it in time. . . 

‘Well, I live to tell the tale. I stood my ground. And there 
dawned on me now a new fact in regard to my companion. I 

[84] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

had all the while been conscious of something abnormal in his 
attitude — a lack of ease in his gross possessiveness. I saw now 
the reason for this effect. The pillow on which his elbow rested 
was still uniformly puffed and convex; like a pillow untouched. 
His elbow rested but on the very surface of it, not changing the 
shape of it at all. His body made not the least furrow along the 
bed. . . He had no weight. 

‘I knew that if I leaned forward and thrust my hand between 
those brass rails, to clutch his foot, I should clutch — nothing. 
He wasn’t tangible. He was realistic. He wasn’t real. He 
was opaque. He wasn’t solid. 

‘Odd as it may seem to you, these certainties took the edge off 
my horror. During that walk with Lady Rodfitten, I had been 
appalled by the doubt that haunted me. But now the very con- 
firmation of that doubt gave me a sort of courage : I could cope 
better with anything to-night than with actual Braxton. And 
the measure of the relief I felt is that I sat down again on my 
chair. 

‘More than once there came to me a wild hope that the thing 
might be an optical delusion, after all. Then would I shut my 
eyes tightly, shaking my head sharply; but, when I looked again, 
there the presence was, of course. It — he — not actual Braxton 
but, roughly speaking, Braxton — had come to stay. I was con- 
scious of intense fatigue, taut and alert though every particle of 
me was; so that I became, in the course of that ghastly night, 
conscious of a great envy also. For some time before the dawn 

[85] 


SEVEN MEN 

came in through the window, Braxton’s eyes had been closed; 
little by little now his head drooped sideways, then fell on his 
forearm and rested there. He was asleep. 

‘Cut off from sleep, I had a great longing for smoke. I had 
cigarettes on me, I had matches on me. But I didn’t dare to 
strike a match. The sound might have waked Braxton up. In 
slumber he was less terrible, though perhaps more odious. I 
wasn’t so much afraid now as indignant. “It’s intolerable,” I 
sat saying to myself, “utterly intolerable!” 

‘I had to bear it, nevertheless. I was aware that I had, in some 
degree, brought it on myself. If I hadn’t interfered and lied, 
actual Braxton would have been here at Keeb, and I at this mo- 
ment sleeping soundly. But this was no excuse for Braxton. 
Braxton didn’t know what I had done. He was merely envious 
of me. And — wanly I puzzled it out in the dawn — by very 
force of the envy, hatred, and malice in him he had projected 
hither into my presence this simulacrum of himself. I had 
known that he would be thinking of me. I had known that the 
thought of me at Keeb Hall would be of the last bitterness to 
his most sacred feelings. But — I had reckoned without the pas- 
sionate force and intensity of the man’s nature. 

‘If by this same strength and intensity he had merely projected 
himself as an invisible guest under the Duchess’ roof — if his feat 
had been wholly, as perhaps it was in part, a feat of mere wistful- 
ness and longing — then I should have felt really sorry for him; 
and my conscience would have soundly rated me in his behalf. 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

But no; if the wretched creature had been invisible to me, I 
shouldn’t have thought of Braxton at all — except with gladness 
that he wasn’t here. That he was visible to me, and to me alone, 
wasn’t any sign of proper remorse within me. It was but the 
gauge of his incredible ill-will. 

‘Well, it seemed to me that he was avenged — with a vengeance. 
There I sat, hot-browed from sleeplessness, cold in the feet, stiff 
in the legs, cowed and indignant all through — sat there in the 
broadening daylight, and in that new evening suit of mine with 
the Braxtonised shirtfront and waistcoat that by day were more 
than ever loathsome. - Literature’s Ambassador at Keeb. . . I 
rose gingerly from my chair, and caught sight of my face, of my 
Braxtonised cheek, in the mirror. I heard the twittering of 
birds in distant trees. I saw through my window the elaborate 
landscape of the Duke’s grounds, all soft in the grey bloom of 
early morning. I think I was nearer to tears than I had ever 
been since I was a child. But the weakness passed. I turned 
towards the personage on my bed, and, summoning all such 
power as was in me, willed him to be gone. My effort was not 
without result — an inadequate result. Braxton turned in his 
sleep. 

‘I resumed my seat, and . . . and ... sat up staring and 
blinking at a tall man with red hair. “I must have fallen 
asleep,” I said. “Yessir,” he replied; and his toneless voice 
touched in me one or two springs of memory: I was at Keeb; 
this was the footman who looked after me. But — why wasn’t I 


SEVEN MEN 

in bed? Had I — no, surely it had been no nightmare. Surely 
I had seen Braxton on that white bed. 

‘The footman was impassively putting away my smoking-suit. 
I was too dazed to wonder what he thought of me. Nor did I 
attempt to stifle a cry when, a moment later, turning in my chair, 
I beheld Braxton leaning moodily against the mantelpiece. 
“Are you unwellsir?” asked the footman. “No,” I said faintly, 
“I’m quite well.” — “Yessir. Will you wear the blue suit or the 
grey?” — “The grey.” — “Yessir.” — It seemed almost incredible 
that he didn’t see Braxton ; he didn’t appear to me one whit more 
solid than the night-shirted brute who stood against the mantel- 
piece and watched him lay out my things. — “Shall I let your 
bath-water run nowsir?” — “Please, yes.” — “Your bathroom’s the 
second door to the left sir.” — He went out with my bath-towel 
and sponge, leaving me alone with Braxton. 

‘I rose to my feet, mustering once more all the strength that 
was in me. Hoping against hope, with set teeth and clenched 
hands, I faced him, thrust forth my will at him, with everything 
but words commanded him to vanish — to cease to be. 

‘Suddenly, utterly, he vanished. And you can imagine the 
truly exquisite sense of triumph that thrilled me and continued 
to thrill me till I went into the bathroom and found him in my 
bath. 

‘Quivering with rage, I returned to my bedroom. “Intoler- 
able,” I heard myself repeating like a parrot that knew no other 
word. A bath was just what I had needed. Could I have lain 
[ 88 ] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

for a long time basking in very hot water, and then have sponged 
myself with cold water, I should have emerged calm and brave; 
comparatively so, at any rate. I should have looked less ghastly, 
and have had less of a headache, and something of an appetite, 
when I went down to breakfast. Also, I shouldn’t have been the 
very first guest to appear on the scene. There were five or six 
round tables, instead of last night’s long table. At the further 
end of the room the butler and two other servants were lighting 
the little lamps under the hot dishes. I didn’t like to make my- 
self ridiculous by running away. On the other hand, was it 
right for me to begin breakfast all by myself at one of these 
round tables? I supposed it was. But I dreaded to be found 
eating, alone in that vast room, by the first downcomer. I sat 
dallying with dry toast and watching the door. It occurred to 
me that Braxton might occur at any moment. Should I be able 
to ignore him? 

‘Some man and wife — a very handsome couple — were the first 
to appear. They nodded and said “good morning” when they 
noticed me on their way to the hot dishes. I rose — uncomforta- 
bly, guiltily — and sat down again. I rose again when the wife 
drifted to my table, followed by the husband with two steaming 
plates. She asked me if it wasn’t a heavenly morning, and I 
replied with nervous enthusiasm that it was. She then ate kedg- 
eree in silence. “You just finishing, what?” the husband asked, 
looking at my plate. “Oh, no — no — only just beginning,” I 
assured him, and helped myself to butter. He then ate kedgeree 

[89] 


SEVEN MEN 

in silence. He looked like some splendid bull, and she like some 
splendid cow, grazing. I envied them their eupeptic calm. I 
surmised that ten thousand Braxtons would not have prevented 
them from sleeping soundly by night and grazing steadily by 
day. Perhaps their stolidity infected me a little. Or perhaps 
what braced me was the great quantity of strong tea that I con- 
sumed. Anyhow I had begun to feel that if Braxton came in 
now I shouldn’t blench nor falter. 

‘Well, I wasn’t put to the test. Plenty of people drifted in, 
but Braxton wasn’t one of them. Lady Rodfitten — no, she didn’t 
drift, she marched, in; and presently, at an adjacent table, she 
was drawing a comparison, in clarion tones, between Jean and 
Edouard de Reszke. It seemed to me that her own voice had 
much in common with Edouard’s. Even more was it akin to a 
military band. I found myself beating time to it with my foot. 
Decidedly, my spirits had risen. I was in a mood to face and 
outface anything. When I rose from the table and made my 
way to the door, I walked with something of a swing — to the 
tune of Lady Rodfitten. 

‘My buoyancy didn’t last long, though. There was no swing 
in my walk when, a little later, I passed out on to the spectacular 
terrace. I had seen my enemy again, and had beaten a furious 
retreat. No doubt I should see him yet again soon — here, per- 
haps, on this terrace. Two of the guests were bicycling slowly 
up and down the long paven expanse, both of them smiling with 
pride in the new delicious form of locomotion. There was a 

[90] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

great array of bicycles propped neatly along the balustrade. I 
recognised my own among them. I wondered whether Braxton 
had projected from Clifford’s Inn an image of his own bicycle. 
He may have done so; but I’ve no evidence that he did. I my- 
self was bicycling when next I saw him ; but he, I remember, was 
on foot. 

‘This was a few minutes later. I was bicycling with dear Lady 
Rodfitten. She seemed really to like me. She had come out 
and accosted me heartily on the terrace, asking me, because of my 
sticking-plaster, with whom I had fought a duel since yesterday. 
I did not tell her with whom, and she had already branched off 
on the subject of duelling in general. She regretted the extinc- 
tion of duelling in England, and gave cogent reasons for her 
regret. Then she asked me what my next book was to be. I 
confided that I was writing a sort of sequel — “Ariel Returns to 
Mayfair.” She shook her head, said with her usual soundness 
that sequels were very dangerous things, and asked me to tell her 
“briefly” the lines along which I was working. I did so. She 
pointed out two or three weak points in my scheme. She said 
she could judge better if I would let her see my manuscript. She 
asked me to come and lunch with her next Friday — “just our 
two selves” — at Rodfitten House, and to bring my manuscript 
with me. Need I say that I walked on air? 

‘ “And now,” she said strenuously, “let us take a turn on our 
bicycles.” By this time there were a dozen riders on the terrace, 
all of them smiling with pride and rapture. We mounted and 

[91] 


SEVEN MEN 

rode along together. The terrace ran round two sides of the 
house, and before we came to the end of it these words had 
provisionally marshalled themselves in my mind: 

TO 

ELEANOR 

COUNTESS OF RODFITTEN 
THIS BOOK WHICH OWES ALL 
TO HER WISE COUNSEL 
AND UNWEARYING SUPERVISION 
IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 
BY HER FRIEND 
THE AUTHOR 

‘Smiled to masonically by the passing bicyclists, and smiling 
masonically to them in return, I began to feel that the rest of my 
visit would run smooth, if only 

‘ “Let’s go a little faster. Let’s race!” said Lady Rodfitten; 
and we did so — “just our two selves.” I was on the side nearer 
to the balustrade, and it was on that side that Braxton suddenly 
appeared from nowhere, solid-looking as a rock, his arms 
akimbo, less than three yards ahead of me, so that I swerved in- 
voluntarily, sharply, striking broadside the front wheel of Lady 
Rodfitten and collapsing with her, and with a crash of machin- 
ery, to the ground. 

‘I wasn’t hurt. She had broken my fall. I wished I was 
dead. She was furious. She sat speechless with fury. A 
crowd had quickly collected — just as in the case of a street ac- 

[92] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

cident. She accused me now to the crowd. She said I had done 
it on purpose. She said such terrible things of me that I think the 
crowd’s sympathy must have veered towards me. She was as- 
sisted to her feet. I tried to be one of the assistants. “Don’t 
let him come near me!” she thundered. I caught sight of Brax- 
ton on the fringe of the crowd, grinning at me. “It was all HIS 
fault,” I madly cried, pointing at him. Everybody looked at 
Mr. Balfour, just behind whom Braxton was standing. There 
was a general murmur of surprise, in which I have no doubt 
Mr. Balfour joined. He gave a charming, blank, deprecating 
smile. “I mean — I can’t explain what I mean,” I groaned. 
Lady Rodfitten moved away, refusing support, limping terribly, 
towards the house. The crowd followed her, solicitous. I 
stood helplessly, desperately, where I was. 

‘I stood an outlaw, a speck on the now empty terrace. Me- 
chanically I picked up my straw hat, and wheeled the two bent 
bicycles to the balustrade. I suppose Mr. Balfour has a charm- 
ing nature. For he presently came out again — on purpose, I 
am sure, to alleviate my misery. He told me that Lady Rod- 
fitten had suffered no harm. He took me for a stroll up and 
down the terrace, talking thoughtfully and enchantingly about 
things in general. Then, having done his deed of mercy, this 
Good Samaritan went back into the house. My eyes followed 
him with gratitude; but I was still bleeding from wounds be- 
yond his skill. I escaped down into the gardens. I wanted to 
see no one. Still more did I want to be seen by no one. I 

[93] 


SEVEN MEN 

dreaded in every nerve of me my reappearance among those peo- 
ple. I walked ever faster and faster, to stifle thought; but in 
vain. Why hadn’t I simply ridden through Braxton? I was 
aware of being now in the park, among great trees and undula- 
tions of wild green ground. But Nature did not achieve the 
task that Mr. Balfour had attempted; and my anguish was un- 
assuaged. 

‘I paused to lean against a tree in the huge avenue that led to 
the huge hateful house. I leaned wondering whether the 
thought of re-entering that house were the more hateful because 
I should have to face my fellow-guests or because I should prob- 
ably have to face Braxton. A church bell began ringing some- 
where. And anon I was aware of another sound — a twitter of 
voices. A consignment of hatted and parasoled ladies was com- 
ing fast adown the avenue. My first impulse was to dodge 
behind my tree. But I feared that I had been observed; so that 
what was left to me of self-respect compelled me to meet these 
ladies. 

‘The Duchess was among them. I had seen her from afar at 
breakfast, but not since. She carried a prayer-book, which she 
waved to me as I approached. I was a disastrous guest, but still 
a guest, and nothing could have been prettier than her smile. 
“Most of my men this week,” she said, “are Pagans, and all the 
others have dispatch-boxes to go through — except the dear old 
Duke of Mull, who’s a member of the Free Kirk. You’re 
Pagan, of course?” 

[94] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

‘I said — and indeed it was a heart-cry — that I should like 
very much to come to church. “If I shan’t be in the way,” I 
rather abjectly added. It didn’t strike me that Braxton would 
try to intercept me. I don’t know why, but it never occurred to 
me, as I walked briskly along beside the Duchess, that I should 
meet him so far from the house. The church was in a corner of 
the park, and the way to it was by a side path that branched off 
from the end of the avenue. A little way along, casting its 
shadow across the path, was a large oak. It was from behind 
this tree, when we came to it, that Braxton sprang suddenly 
forth and tripped me up with his foot. 

‘Absurd to be tripped up by the mere semblance of a foot? 
But remember, I was walking quickly, and the whole thing hap- 
pened in a flash of time. It was inevitable that I should throw 
out my hands and come down headlong — just as though the ob- 
stacle had been as real as it looked. Down I came on palms and 
knee-caps, and up I scrambled, very much hurt and shaken and 
apologetic. “ Poor Mr. Maltby! Really — !” the Duchess 
wailed for me in this latest of my mishaps. Some other lady 
chased my straw hat, which had bowled far ahead. Two others 
helped to brush me. They were all very kind, with a quaver of 
mirth in their concern for me. I looked furtively around for 
Braxton, but he was gone. The palms of my hands were abraded 
with gravel. The Duchess said I must on no account come to 
church now . I was utterly determined to reach that sanctuary. 
I marched firmly on with the Duchess. Come what might on 

[ 95 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

the way, I wasn’t going to be left out here. I was utterly bent 
on winning at least one respite. 

‘Well, I reached the little church without further molestation. 
To be there seemed almost too good to be true. The organ, just 
as we entered, sounded its first notes. The ladies rustled into the 
front pew. I, being the one male of the party, sat at the end of 
the pew, beside the Duchess. I couldn’t help feeling that my 
position was a proud one. But I had gone through too much to 
take instant pleasure in it, and was beset by thoughts of what new 
horror might await me on the way back to the house. ' I hoped 
the Service would not be brief. The swelling and dwindling 
strains of the “voluntary” on the small organ were strangely 
soothing. I turned to give an almost-feudal glance to the simple 
villagers in the pews behind, and saw a sight that cowed my soul. 

‘Braxton was coming up the aisle. He came slowly, casting 
a tourist’s eye at the stained-glass windows on either side. Walk- 
ing heavily, yet with no sound of boots on the pavement, he 
reached our pew. There, towering and glowering, he halted, 
as though demanding that we should make room for him. A 
moment later he edged sullenly into the pew. Instinctively I 
had sat tight back, drawing my knees aside, in a shudder of 
revulsion against contact. But Braxton did not push past me. 
What he did was to sit slowly and fully down on me. 

‘No, not down on me. Down through me and around 

me. What befell me was not mere ghastly contact with the 
intangible. It was inclusion, envelopment, eclipse. What 

[96] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

Braxton sat down on was not I, but the seat of the pew; and 
what he sat back against was not my face and chest, but the back 
of the pew. I didn’t realise this at the moment. All I knew 
was a sudden black blotting-out of all things ; an infinite and im- 
penetrable darkness. I dimly conjectured that I was dead. 
What was wrong with me, in point of fact, was that my eyes, with 
the rest of me, were inside Braxton. You remember what a 
great hulking fellow Braxton was. I calculate that as we sat 
there my eyes were just beneath the roof of his mouth. Hor- 
rible! 

‘Out of the unfathomable depths of that pitch darkness, I 
could yet hear the “voluntary” swelling and dwindling, just as 
before. It was by this I knew now that I wasn’t dead. And I 
suppose I must have craned my head forward, for I had a sudden 
glimpse of things — a close quick downward glimpse of a pepper- 
and-salt waistcoat and of two great hairy hands clasped across 
it. Then darkness again. Either I had drawn back my head, 
or Braxton had thrust his forward; I don’t know which. “Are 
you all right?” the Duchess’ voice whispered, and no doubt my 
face was ashen. “Quite,” whispered my voice. But this pa- 
thetic monosyllable was the last gasp of the social instinct in me. 
Suddenly, as the “voluntary” swelled to its close, there was a 
great sharp shuffling noise. The congregation had risen to its 
feet, at the entry of choir and vicar. Braxton had risen, leaving 
me in daylight. I beheld his towering back. The Duchess, 
beside him, glanced round at me. But I could not, dared not, 

[97] 


SEVEN MEN 

stand up into that presented back, into that great waiting dark- 
ness. I did but clutch my hat from beneath the seat and hurry 
distraught down the aisle, out through the porch, into the open 
air. 

‘Whither? To what goal? I didn’t reason. I merely fled 
— like Orestes; fled like an automaton along the path we had 
come by. And was followed? Yes, yes. Glancing back across 
my shoulder, I saw that brute some twenty yards behind me, 
gaining on me. I broke into a sharper run. A few sickening 
moments later he was beside me, scowling down into my 
face. 

‘I swerved, dodged, doubled on my tracks, but he was always 
at me. Now and again, for lack of breath, I halted, and he 
halted with me. And then, when I had got my wind, I would 
start running again, in the insane hope of escaping him. We 
came, by what twisting and turning course I know not, to the 
great avenue, and as I stood there in an agony of panting I had 
a dazed vision of the distant Hall. Really I had quite forgotten 
I was staying at the Duke of Hertfordshire’s. But Braxton 
hadn’t forgotten. He planted himself in front of me. He 
stood between me and the house. 

‘Faint though I was, I could almost have laughed. Good 
heavens! was that all he wanted: that I shouldn’t go back there? 
Did he suppose I wanted to go back there — with him ? Was I 
the Duke’s prisoner on parole? What was there to prevent me 
from just walking off to the railway station? I turned to do so. 

[98] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

‘He accompanied me on my way. I thought that when once 
I had passed through the lodge gates he might vanish, satisfied. 
But no, he didn’t vanish. It was as though he suspected that if 
he let me out of his sight I should sneak back to the house. He 
arrived with me, this quiet companion of mine, at the little rail- 
way station. Evidently he meant to see me off. I learned from 
an elderly and solitary porter that the next train to London was 
the 4.3. 

‘Well, Braxton saw me off by the 4.3. I reflected, as I stepped 
up into an empty compartment, that it wasn’t yet twenty-four 
hours ago since I, or some one like me, had alighted at that 
station. 

‘The guard blew his whistle; the engine shrieked, and the 
train jolted forward and away; but I did not lean out of the 
window to see the last of my attentive friend. 

‘Really not twenty-four hours ago? Not twenty-four years?’ 

Maltby paused in his narrative. ‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘I don’t 
want you to think I overrate the ordeal of my visit to Keeb. A 
man of stronger nerve than mine, and of greater resourcefulness, 
might have coped successfully with Braxton from first to last — 
might have stayed on till Monday, making a very favourable 
impression on every one all the while. Even as it was, even 
after my manifold failures and sudden flight, I don’t say my 
position was impossible. I only say it seemed so to me. A man 
less sensitive than I, and less vain, might have cheered up after 

[99] 


SEVEN MEN 

writing a letter of apology to his hostess, and have resumed his 
normal existence as though nothing very terrible had happened, 
after all. I wrote a few lines to the Duchess that night; but I 
wrote amidst the preparations for my departure from England: 
I crossed the Channel next morning. Throughout that Sunday 
afternoon with Braxton at the Keeb railway station, pacing the 
desolate platform with him, waiting in the desolating waiting- 
room with him, I was numb to regrets, and was thinking of noth- 
ing but the 4.3. On the way to Victoria my brain worked and 
my soul wilted. Every incident in my stay at Keeb stood out 
clear to me; a dreadful, a hideous pattern. I had done for my- 
self, so far as those people were concerned. And now that I had 
sampled them , what cared I for others? “Too low for a hawk, 
too high for a buzzard.” That homely old saying seemed to 
sum me up. And suppose I could still take pleasure in the com- 
pany of my own old upper-middle class, how would that class 
regard me now? Gossip percolates. Little by little, I was sure, 
the story of my Keeb fiasco would leak down into the drawing- 
room of Mrs. Foster-Dugdale. I felt I could never hold up 
my head in any company where anything of that story was known. 
Are you quite sure you never heard anything?’ 

I assured Maltby that all I had known was the great bare fact 
of his having stayed at Keeb Hall. 

‘It’s curious,’ he reflected. ‘It’s a fine illustration of the 
loyalty of those people to one another. I suppose there was a 
general agreement for the Duchess’ sake that nothing should be 
[100] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

said about her queer guest. But even if I had dared hope to be 
so efficiently hushed up, I couldn’t have not fled. I wanted to 
forget. I wanted to leap into some void, far away from all re- 
minders. I leapt straight from Ryder Street into Vaule-la- 
Rochette, a place of which I had once heard that it was the least 
frequented seaside-resort in Europe. I leapt leaving no address 
— leapt telling my landlord that if a suit-case and a portmanteau 
arrived for me he could regard them, them and their contents, 
as his own for ever. I daresay the Duchess wrote me a kind 
little letter, forcing herself to express a vague hope that I would 
come again “some other time.” I daresay Lady Rodfitten did 
not write reminding me of my promise to lunch on Friday and 
bring “Ariel Returns to Mayfair” with me. I left that manu- 
script at Ryder Street; in my bedroom grate; a shuffle of ashes. 
Not that I’d yet given up all thought of writing. But I cer- 
tainly wasn’t going to write now about the two things I most 
needed to forget. I wasn’t going to write about the British 
aristocracy, nor about any kind of supernatural presence. . . I 
did write a novel — my last — while I was at Vaule. “Mr. and 
Mrs. Robinson.” Did you ever come across a copy of it?’ 

I nodded gravely. 

‘Ah; I wasn’t sure,’ said Maltby, ‘whether it was ever pub- 
lished. A dreary affair, wasn’t it? I knew a great deal about 
suburban life. But — well, I suppose one can’t really understand 
what one doesn’t love, and one can’t make good fun without real 
understanding. Besides, what chance of virtue is there for a 

[ioi] 


SEVEN MEN 

book written merely to distract the author’s mind? I had hoped 
to be healed by sea and sunshine and solitude. These things 
were useless. The labour of “Mr. and Mrs. Robinson” did help, 
a little. When I had finished it, I thought I might as well send 
it off to my publisher. He had given me a large sum of money, 
down, after “Ariel,” for my next book — so large that I was rather 
loth to disgorge. In the note I sent with the manuscript, I gave 
no address, and asked that the proofs should be read in the office. 
I didn’t care whether the thing were published or not. I knew 
it would be a dead failure if it were. What mattered one more 
drop in the foaming cup of my humiliation? I knew Braxton 
would grin and gloat. I didn’t mind even that.’ 

‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘Braxton was in no mood for grinning and 
gloating. “The Drones” had already appeared.” 

Maltby had never heard of ‘The Drones’ — which I myself 
had remembered only in the course of his disclosures. I ex- 
plained to him that it was Braxton’s second novel, and was by 
way of being a savage indictment of the British aristocracy; 
that it was written in the worst possible taste, but was so very 
dull that it fell utterly flat; that Braxton had forthwith taken, 
with all of what Maltby had called ‘the passionate force and 
intensity of his nature,’ to drink, and had presently gone under 
and not re-emerged. 

Maltby gave signs of genuine, though not deep, emotion, and 
cited two or three of the finest passages from ‘A Faun on the 
Cotswolds.’ He even expressed a conviction that ‘The Drones’ 
[102] 


MALTBY AND BRAXTON 

must have been misjudged. He said he blamed himself more 
than ever for yielding to that bad impulse at that Soiree. 

‘And yet,’ he mused, ‘and yet, honestly, I can’t find it in my 
heart to regret that I did yield. I can only wish that all had 
turned out as well, in the end, for Braxton as for me. I wish he 
could have won out, as I did, into a great and lasting felicity. 
For about a year after I had finished “Mr. and Mrs. Robinson” 
I wandered from place to place, trying to kill memory, shun- 
ning all places frequented by the English. At last I found my- 
self in Lucca. Here, if anywhere, I thought, might a bruised 
and tormented spirit find gradual peace. I determined to move 
out of my hotel into some permanent lodging. Not for felicity, 
not for any complete restoration of self-respect, was I hoping; 
only for peace. A “mezzano” conducted me to a noble and 
ancient house, of which, he told me, the owner was anxious to 
let the first floor. It was in much disrepair, but even so seemed 
to me very cheap. According to the simple Luccan standard, 
I am rich. I took that first floor for a year, had it repaired, and 
engaged two servants. My “padrona” inhabited the ground 
floor. From time to time she allowed me to visit her there. She 
was the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli, the last of her line. She is 
the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli-Maltby. We have been married 
fifteen years.’ 

Maltby looked at his watch. He rose and took tenderly from 
the table his great bunch of roses. ‘She is a lineal descendant,’ 
he said, ‘of the Emperor Hadrian.’ 

[103] 











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JAMES PETHEL 


September 17 , 1912 

T HOUGH seven years have gone by since the day when 
last I saw him, and though that day was but the morrow 
of my first meeting with him, I was shocked when I saw 
in my newspaper this morning the announcement of his sudden 
death. 

I had formed, in the dim past, the habit of spending August 
in Dieppe. The place was less popular then than it is now. 
Some pleasant English people shared it with some pleasant 
French people. We used rather to resent the race-week — the 
third week of the month — as an intrusion on our privacy. We 
sneered as we read in the Paris edition of the New York Herald 
the names of the intruders. We disliked the nightly crush in 
the baccarat room of the Casino, and the croupiers’ obvious ex- 
citement at the high play. I made a point of avoiding that room 
during that week, for the especial reason that the sight of serious, 
habitual gamblers has always filled me with a depression border- 
ing on disgust. Most of the men, by some subtle stress of their 
ruling passion, have grown so monstrously fat, and most of the 


SEVEN MEN 

women so harrowingly thin. The rest of the women seem to 
be marked out for apoplexy, and the rest of the men to be wasting 
away. One feels that anything thrown at them would be either 
embedded or shattered, and looks vainly among them for a per- 
son furnished with the normal amount of flesh. Monsters they 
are, all of them, to the eye (though I believe that many of them 
have excellent moral qualities in private life) ; but, just as in an 
American town one goes sooner or later — goes against one’s finer 
judgment, but somehow goes — into the dime-museum, so, year 
by year, in Dieppe’s race-week, there would be always one eve- 
ning when I drifted into the baccarat room. It was on such an 
evening that I first saw the man whose memory I here celebrate. 
My gaze was held by him for the very reason that he would have 
passed unnoticed elsewhere. He was conspicuous, not in virtue 
of the mere fact that he was taking the bank at the principal 
table, but because there was nothing at all odd about him. 

Between his lips was a cigar of moderate size. Everything 
about him, except the amount of money he had been winning, 
seemed moderate. Just as he was neither fat nor thin, so had his 
face neither that extreme pallor nor that extreme redness which 
belongs to the faces of seasoned gamblers: it was just a clear 
pink. And his eyes had neither the unnatural brightness nor the 
unnatural dullness of the eyes around him: they were ordinarily 
clear eyes, of an ordinary grey. His very age was moderate: a 
putative thirty-six, not more. (“Not less,” I would have said in 
those days.) He assumed no air of nonchalance. He did not 
[i°8] 


JAMES PETHEL 

deal out the cards as though they bored him. But he had no 
look of grim concentration. I noticed that the removal of his 
cigar from his mouth made never the least difference to his face, 
for he kept his lips pursed out as steadily as ever when he was not 
smoking. And this constant pursing of his lips seemed to de- 
note just a pensive interest. 

His bank was nearly done now. There were but a few cards 
left. Opposite to him was a welter of parti-coloured counters 
which the croupier had not yet had time to sort out and add to 
the rouleaux already made; there were also a fair accumulation 
of notes and several little stacks of gold. In all, not less than five 
hundred pounds, certainly. Happy banker! How easily had 
he won in a few minutes more than I, with utmost pains, could 
earn in many months! I wished I were he. His lucre seemed 
to insult me personally. I disliked him. And yet I hoped he 
would not take another bank. I hoped he would have the good 
sense to pocket his winnings and go home. Deliberately to 
risk the loss of all those riches would intensify the insult to 
myself. 

‘Messieurs, la banque est aux encheresl’ There was some 
brisk bidding, while the croupier tore open and shuffled the two 
packs. But it was as I feared: the gentleman whom I resented 
kept his place. 

‘Messieurs, la banque est faite. Quinze mille francs a la 
banque. Messieurs, les cartes passent! Messieurs, les cartes 
passent!’ 


[109] 


SEVEN MEN 

Turning to go, I encountered a friend — one of the race-week- 
ers, but in a sense a friend. 

‘Going to play?’ I asked. 

‘Not while Jimmy Pethel’s taking the bank,’ he answered, with 
a laugh. 

‘Is that the man’s name?’ 

‘Yes. Don’t you know him? I thought every one knew old 
Jimmy Pethel.’ 

I asked what there was so wonderful about ‘old Jimmy Pethel’ 
that every one should be supposed to know him. 

‘Oh, he’s a great character. Has extraordinary luck. Al- 
ways.’ 

I do not think my friend was versed in the pretty theory that 
good luck is the unconscious wisdom of them who in previous in- 
carnations have been consciously wise. He was a member of the 
Stock Exchange, and I smiled as at a certain quaintness in his 
remark. I asked in what ways besides luck the ‘great character’ 
was manifested. Oh, well, Pethel had made a huge ‘scoop’ on 
the Stock Exchange when he was only twenty-three, and very 
soon doubled that, and doubled it again; then retired. He 
wasn’t more than thirty-five now. And? Oh, well, he was a 
regular all-round sportsman — had gone after big game all over 
the world and had a good many narrow shaves. Great steeple- 
chaser, too. Rather settled down now. Lived in Leicestershire 
mostly. Had a big place there. Hunted five times a week, 
[no] 


JAMES PETHEL 

Still did an occasional flutter, though. Cleared eighty thousand 
in Mexicans last February. Wife had been a bar-maid at Cam- 
bridge. Married her when he was nineteen. Thing seemed to 
have turned out quite well. Altogether, a great character. 

Possibly, thought I. But my cursory friend, accustomed to 
quick transactions and to things accepted ‘on the nod,’ had not 
proved his case to my slower, more literary intelligence. It 
was to him, however, that I owed, some minutes later, a chance 
of testing his opinion. At the cry of ‘Messieurs, la banque est 
aux encheres’ we looked round and saw that the subject of our 
talk was preparing to rise from his place. ‘Now one can punt!’ 
said Grierson (this was my friend’s name), and turned to the 
bureau at which counters are for sale. ‘If old Jimmy Pethel 
punts,’ he added, ‘I shall just follow his luck.’ But this lodestar 
was not to be. While my friend was buying his counters, and I 
wondering whether I too would buy some, Pethel himself came 
up to the bureau. With his lips no longer pursed, he had lost 
his air of gravity, and looked younger. Behind him was an at- 
tendant bearing a big wooden bowl — that plain but romantic 
bowl supplied by the establishment to a banker whose gains are 
too great to be pocketed. He and Grierson greeted each other. 
He said he had arrived in Dieppe this afternoon — was here for 
a day or two. We were introduced. He spoke to me with some 
empressement, saying he was a ‘very great admirer’ of my work. 
I no longer disliked him. Grierson, armed with counters, had 

[mi 


SEVEN MEN 

now darted away to secure a place that had just been vacated. 
Pethel, with a wave of his hand towards the tables, said, ‘I sup- 
pose you never condescend to this sort of thing?’ 

‘Well ’ I smiled indulgently. 

‘Awful waste of time,’ he admitted. 

I glanced down at the splendid mess of counters and gold and 
notes that were now becoming, under the swift fingers of the little 
man at the bureau, an orderly array. I did not say aloud that 
it pleased me to be, and to be seen, talking, on terms of equality, 
to a man who had won so much. I did not say how wonderful 
it seemed to me that he, whom I had watched just now with awe 
and with aversion, had all the while been a great admirer of my 
work. I did but say (again indulgently) that I supposed bac- 
carat to be as good a way of wasting time as another. 

‘Ah, but you despise us all the same!’ He added that he al- 
ways envied men who had resources within themselves. I 
laughed lightly, to imply that it was very pleasant to have such 
resources, but that I didn’t want to boast. And indeed, I had 
never, I vow, felt flimsier than when the little man at the bureau, 
naming a fabulous sum, asked its owner whether he would take 
the main part in notes of mille francs? cinq mille? dix mille? 
quoi? Had it been mine, I should have asked to have it all in 
five-franc pieces. Pethel took it in the most compendious form 
and crumpled it into a pocket. I asked if he were going to play 
any more to-night. 

‘Oh, later on,’ he said. ‘I want to get a little sea-air into my 

[H2] 


JAMES PETHEL 

lungs now’; and he asked with a sort of breezy diffidence if I 
would go with him. I was glad to do so. It flashed across my 
mind that yonder on the terrace he might suddenly blurt out, 
‘I say, look here, don’t think me awfully impertinent, but this 
money’s no earthly use to me : I do wish you’d accept it, as a very 
small return for all the pleasure your work has given me, and 
. . . There! Please! Not another word !’ — all with such can- 
dour, delicacy, and genuine zeal that I should be unable to re- 
fuse. But I must not raise false hopes in my reader. Nothing 
of the sort happened. Nothing of that sort ever does happen. 

We were not long on the terrace. It was not a night on which 
you could stroll and talk: there was a wind against which you 
had to stagger, holding your hat on tightly and shouting such re- 
marks as might occur to you. Against that wind acquaintance 
could make no headway. Yet I see now that despite that wind 
— or rather because of it — I ought already to have known Pethel 
a little better than I did when we presently sat down together 
inside the cafe of the Casino. There had been a point in our 
walk, or our stagger, when we paused to lean over the parapet, 
looking down at the black and driven sea. And Pethel had 
shouted that it would be great fun to be out in a sailing- 
boat to-night and that at one time he had been very fond of 
sailing. 

As we took our seats in the cafe, he looked around him with 
boyish interest and pleasure. Then, squaring his arms on the lit- 
tle table, he asked me what I would drink. I protested that I 

[113] 


SEVEN MEN 

was the host — a position which he, with the quick courtesy of 
the very rich, yielded to me at once. I feared he would ask for 
champagne, and was gladdened by his demand for water. 
‘Apollinaris? St. Galmier? Or what?’ I asked. He preferred 
plain water. I felt bound to warn him that such water was 
never ‘safe’ in these places. He said he had often heard that, 
but would risk it. I remonstrated, but he was firm. ‘Alors,’ I 
told the waiter, ‘pour Monsieur un verre d’eau fraiche, et pour 
moi un demi blonde.’ Pethel asked me to tell him who every 
one was. I told him no one was any one in particular, and sug- 
gested that we should talk about ourselves. ‘You mean,’ he 
laughed, ‘that you want to know who the devil lam?’ I assured 
him that I had often heard of him. At this he was unaffectedly 
pleased. ‘But,’ I added, ‘it’s always more interesting to hear a 
man talked about by himself.’ And indeed, since he had not 
handed his winnings over to me, I did hope he would at any rate 
give me some glimpses into that ‘great character’ of his. Full 
though his life had been, he seemed but like a rather clever 
schoolboy out on a holiday. I wanted to know more. 

‘That beer does look good,’ he admitted when the waiter came 
back. I asked him to change his mind. But he shook his head, 
raised to his lips the tumbler of water that had been placed be- 
fore him, and meditatively drank a deep draught. ‘I never,’ he 
then said, ‘touch alcohol of any sort.’ He looked solemn; but 
all men do look solemn when they speak of their own habits, 
whether positive or negative, and no matter how trivial; and so 

[”4] 


JAMES PETHEL 

(though I had really no warrant for not supposing him a re- 
claimed drunkard) I dared ask him for what reason he ab- 
stained. 

‘When I say I never touch alcohol/ he said hastily, in a tone 
as of self-defence, ‘I mean that I don’t touch it often — or at any 
rate — well, I never touch it when I’m gambling , you know. It 
— it takes the edge off.’ 

His tone did make me suspicious. For a moment I wondered 
whether he had married the barmaid rather for what she symbol- 
ised than for what in herself she was. But no, surely not : he had 
been only nineteen years old. Nor in any way had he now — 
this steady, brisk, clear-eyed fellow — the aspect of one who had 
since fallen. ‘The edge off the excitement?’ I asked. 

‘Rather! Of course that sort of excitement seems awfully 
stupid to you. But — no use denying it — I do like a bit of a 
flutter — just occasionally, you know. And one has to be in trim 
for it. Suppose a man sat down dead drunk to a game of chance, 
what fun would it be for him? None. And it’s only a question 
of degree. Soothe yourself ever so little with alcohol, and you 
don’t get quite the full sensation of gambling. You do lose just a 
little something of the proper tremors before a coup, the proper 
throes during a coup, the proper thrill of joy or anguish after a 
coup. . . You’re bound to, you know,’ he added, purposely mak- 
ing this bathos when he saw me smiling at the heights to which 
he had risen. 

‘And to-night,’ I asked, remembering his prosaically pensive 

[ns] 


SEVEN MEN 

demeanour in taking the bank, ‘were you feeling these throes and 
thrills to the utmost?’ 

He nodded. 

‘And you’ll feel them again to-night?’ 

‘I hope so.’ 

‘I wonder you can stay away.’ 

‘Oh, one gets a bit deadened after an hour or so. One needs to 
be freshened up. So long as I don’t bore you ’ 

I laughed, and held out my cigarette-case. ‘I rather wonder 
you smoke,’ I murmured, after giving him a light. ‘Nicotine’s 
a sort of drug. Doesn’t it soothe you? Don’t you lose just a 
little something of the tremors and things?’ 

He looked at me gravely. ‘By Jove,’ he ejaculated, ‘I never 
thought of that. Perhaps you’re right. ’Pon my word, I must 
think that over.’ 

I wondered whether he were secretly laughing at me. Here 
was a man to whom (so I conceived, with an effort of the imagi- 
nation) the loss or gain of a few hundred pounds could not 
matter. I told him I had spoken in jest. ‘To give up tobacco 
might,’ I said, ‘intensify the pleasant agonies of a gambler staking 
his little all. But in your case — well, frankly, I don’t see where 
the pleasant agonies come in.’ 

‘You mean because I’m beastly rich?’ 

‘Rich,’ I amended. 

‘All depends on what you call rich. Besides, I’m not the sort 
of fellow who’s content with 3 per cent. A couple of months 

[1 16] 


JAMES PETHEL 

ago — I tell you this in confidence — I risked practically all I had, 
in an Argentine deal.’ 

‘And lost it?’ 

‘No, as a matter of fact I made rather a good thing out of it 
I did rather well last February, too. But there’s no knowing 
the future. A few errors of judgment — a war here, a revolution 
there, a big strike somewhere else, and — ’ He blew a jet of 
smoke from his lips, and looked at me as at one whom he could 
trust to feel for him in a crash already come. 

My sympathy lagged, and I stuck to the point of my inquiry. 
‘Meanwhile,’ I suggested, ‘and all the more because you aren’t 
merely a rich man, but also an active taker of big risks, how can 
these tiny little baccarat risks give you so much emotion?’ 

‘There you rather have me,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve often wondered 
at that myself. I suppose,’ he puzzled it out, ‘I do a good lot of 
make-believe. While I’m playing a game like this game to- 
night, I imagine the stakes are huge, and I imagine I haven’t 
another penny in the world.’ 

‘Ah! So that with you it’s always a life-and-death affair?’ 

He looked away. ‘Oh, no, I don’t say that.’ 

‘Stupid phrase,’ I admitted. ‘But,’ there was yet one point 
I would put to him, ‘if you have extraordinary luck — always — ’ 

‘There’s no such thing as luck.’ 

‘No, strictly, I suppose, there isn’t. But if in point of fact you 
always do win, then — well, surely, perfect luck driveth out fear?’ 

‘Who ever said I always won?’ he asked sharply. 


[” 7 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

I waved my hands and said, ‘Oh, you have the reputation, you 
know, for extraordinary luck.’ 

‘That isn’t the same thing as always winning. Besides, I 
haven’t extraordinary luck — never have had. Good heavens,’ 
he exclaimed, ‘if I thought I had any more chance of winning 
than of losing, I’d — I’d — ’ 

‘Never again set foot in that baccarat room to-night,’ I sooth- 
ingly suggested. 

‘Oh, baccarat be blowed! I wasn’t thinking of baccarat. I 
was thinking of — oh, lots of things ; baccarat included, yes.’ 

‘What things?’ I ventured to ask. 

‘What things?’ He pushed back his chair, and ‘Look here,’ 
he said with a laugh, ‘don’t pretend I haven’t been boring your 
head off with all this talk about myself. You’ve been too pa- 
tient. I’m off. Shall I see you to-morrow? Perhaps you’d 
lunch with us to-morrow? It would be a great pleasure for my 
wife. We’re at the Hotel Royal.’ 

I said I should be most happy, and called the waiter; at sight 
of whom my friend said he had talked himself thirsty, and asked 
for another glass of water. He mentioned that he had brought 
his car over with him: his little daughter (by the news of whose 
existence I felt idiotically surprised) was very keen on motor- 
ing, and they were all three starting the day after to-morrow for 
‘a spin through France.’ Afterwards, they were going on to 
Switzerland, ‘for some climbing.’ Did I care about motoring? 
[118] 


JAMES PETHEL 

If so, we might go for a spin after luncheon, to Rouen or some- 
where? He drank his glass of water, and, linking a friendly 
arm in mine, passed out with me into the corridor. He asked 
what I was writing now, and said that he looked to me to ‘do 
something big, one of these days,’ and that he was sure I had it 
‘in’ me. This remark (though of course I pretended to be 
pleased by it) irritated me very much. It was destined, as you 
shall see, to irritate me very much more in recollection. 

Yet was I glad he had asked me to luncheon. Glad because 
I liked him, glad because I dislike mysteries. Though you may 
think me very dense for not having thoroughly understood Pethel 
in the course of my first meeting with him, the fact is that I 
was only conscious, and that dimly, of something more in him 
than he had cared to reveal — some veil behind which perhaps 
lurked his right to the title so airily bestowed on him by Grier- 
son. I assured myself, as I walked home, that if veil there were 
I should to-morrow find an eyelet. 

But one’s intuition when it is off duty seems always so much 
more powerful an engine than it does on active service; and next 
day, at sight of Pethel awaiting me outside his hotel, I became 
less confident. His, thought I, was a face which, for all its 
animation, would tell nothing — nothing, at any rate, that mat- 
tered. It expressed well enough that he was pleased to see me; 
but for the rest, I was reminded, it had a sort of frank inscruta- 
bility. Besides, it was at all points so very usual a face — a face 

[” 9 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

that couldn’t (so I then thought), even if it had leave to, betray 
connexion with a ‘great character.’ It was a strong face, cer- 
tainly. But so are yours and mine. 

And very fresh it looked, though, as he confessed, Pethel had 
sat up in ‘that beastly baccarat room’ till 5 a.m. I asked, had he 
lost? Yes, he had lost steadily for four hours (proudly he laid 
stress on this), but in the end — well (he admitted), he had won 
it all back ‘and a bit more.’ ‘By the way,’ he murmured as we 
were about to enter the hall, ‘don’t ever happen to mention to my 
wife what I told you about that Argentine deal. She’s always 
rather nervous about — investments. I don’t tell her about them. 
She’s rather a nervous woman altogether, I’m sorry to say.’ 

This did not square with my preconception of her. Slave that 
I am to traditional imagery, I had figured her as ‘flaunting,’ as 
golden-haired, as haughty to most men but with a provocative 
smile across the shoulder for some. Nor indeed did her hus- 
band’s words prevent me from the suspicion that my eyes de- 
ceived me when anon I was presented to a very pale small lady 
whose hair was rather white than grey. And the ‘little daugh- 
ter’! This prodigy’s hair was as yet ‘down,’ but looked as if it 
might be up at any moment: she was nearly as tall as her father, 
whom she very much resembled in face and figure and heartiness 
of hand-shake. Only after a rapid mental calculation could I 
account for her. ‘I must warn you, she’s in a great rage this 
morning,’ said her father. ‘Do try to soothe her.’ She blushed, 
laughed, and bade her father not be so silly. I asked her the 
[120] 


JAMES PETHEL 

cause of her great rage. She said ‘He only means I was disap- 
pointed. And he was just as disappointed as I was. Weren’t 
you, now, Father?’ 

‘I suppose they meant well, Peggy,’ he laughed. 

‘They were quite right,’ said Mrs. Pethel, evidently not for 
the first time. 

‘They,’ as I presently learned, were the authorities of the bath- 
ing establishment. Pethel had promised his daughter he would 
take her for a swim; but on their arrival at the bathing-cabins 
they were ruthlessly told that bathing was ‘defendu a cause du 
mauvais temps.’ This embargo was our theme as we sat down 
to luncheon. Miss Peggy was of opinion that the French were 
cowards. I pleaded for them that even in English watering- 
places bathing was forbidden when the sea was very rough. She 
did not admit that the sea was very rough to-day. Besides, she 
appealed to me, what was the fun of swimming in absolutely 
calm water? I dared not say that this was the only sort of water 
I liked to swim in. ‘They were quite right,’ said Mrs. Pethel 
yet again. 

‘Yes, but, darling Mother, you can’t swim. Father and I are 
both splendid swimmers.’ 

To gloze over the mother’s disability, I looked brightly at 
Pethel, as though in ardent recognition of his prowess among 
waves. With a movement of his head he indicated his daugh- 
ter — indicated that there was no one like her in the whole world. 
I beamed agreement. Indeed, I did think her rather nice. If 


SEVEN MEN 

one liked the father (and I liked Pethel all the more in that 
capacity), one couldn’t help liking the daughter: the two were 
so absurdly alike. Whenever he was looking at her (and it was 
seldom that he looked away from her) the effect, if you cared to 
be fantastic, was that of a very vain man before a mirror. It 
might have occurred to me that, if there were any mystery in 
him, I could solve it through her. But, in point of fact, I had 
forgotten all about that possible mystery. The amateur detec- 
tive was lost in the sympathetic observer of a father’s love. That 
Pethel did love his daughter I have never doubted. One pas- 
sion is not less true because another predominates. No one who 
ever saw that father with that daughter could doubt that he 
loved her intensely. And this intensity gauges for me the 
strength of what else was in him. 

Mrs. Pethel’s love, though less explicit, was not less evidently 
profound. But the maternal instinct is less attractive to an on- 
looker, because he takes it more for granted, than the paternal. 
What endeared poor Mrs. Pethel to me was — well, the inevita- 
bility of the epithet I give her. She seemed, poor thing, so es- 
sentially out of it; and by ‘it’ is meant the glowing mutual affinity 
of husband and child. Not that she didn’t, in her little way, 
assert herself during the meal. But she did so, I thought, with 
the knowledge that she didn’t count, and never would count. I 
wondered how it was that she had, in that Cambridge bar-room 
long ago, counted for Pethel to the extent of matrimony. But 
from any such room she seemed so utterly remote that she might 
[122] 


JAMES PETHEL 

well be in all respects now an utterly changed woman. She did 
pre-eminently look as if much had by some means been taken out 
of her, with no compensatory process of putting in. Pethel 
looked so very young for his age, whereas she would have had to 
be quite old to look young for hers. I pitied her as one might a 
governess with two charges who were hopelessly out of hand. 
But a governess, I reflected, can always give notice. Love tied 
poor Mrs. Pethel fast to her present situation. 

As the three of them were to start next day on their tour 
through France, and as the four of us were to make a tour to 
Rouen this afternoon, the talk was much about motoring — a 
theme which Miss Peggy’s enthusiasm made almost tolerable. 
I said to Mrs. Pethel, with more good-will than truth, that I 
supposed she was ‘very keen on it.’ She replied that she was. 

‘But darling Mother, you aren’t. I believe you hate it. 
You’re always asking Father to go slower. And what is the fun 
of just crawling along?’ 

‘Oh, come, Peggy, we never crawl,’ said her father. 

‘No, indeed,’ said her mother, in a tone of which Pethel laugh- 
ingly said it would put me off coming out with them this after- 
noon. I said, with an expert air to reassure Mrs. Pethel, that it 
wasn’t fast driving, but only bad driving, that was a danger. 
‘There, Mother!’ cried Peggy. ‘Isn’t that what we’re always 
telling you?’ 

I felt that they were always either telling Mrs. Pethel some- 
thing or, as in the matter of that intended bath, not telling her 

[123] 


SEVEN MEN 

something. It seemed to me possible that Peggy advised her 
father about his ‘investments.’ I wondered whether they had 
yet told Mrs. Pethel of their intention to go on to Switzerland 
for some climbing. 

Of his secretiveness for his wife’s sake I had a touching little 
instance after luncheon. We had adjourned to have coffee in 
front of the hotel. The car was already in attendance, and 
Peggy had darted off to make her daily inspection of it. Pethel 
had given me a cigar, and his wife presently noticed that he 
himself was not smoking. He explained to her that he thought 
he had smoked too much lately, and that he was going to ‘knock 
it off’ for a while. I would not have smiled if he had met my 
eye. But his avoidance of it made me quite sure that he really 
had been ‘thinking over’ what I had said last night about nicotine 
and its possibly deleterious action on the gambling thrill. 

Mrs. Pethel saw the smile that I could not repress. I ex- 
plained that I was wishing I could knock off tobacco, and envy- 
ing her husband’s strength of character. She smiled too, but 
wanly, with her eyes on him. ‘Nobody has so much strength of 
character as he has,’ she said. 

‘Nonsense!’ he laughed. ‘I’m the weakest of men.’ 

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s true, too, James.’ 

Again he laughed, but he flushed. I saw that Mrs. Pethel also 
had faintly flushed ; and I became horribly conscious of follow- 
ing suit. In the sudden glow and silence created by Mrs. 
Pethel’s paradox, I was grateful to the daughter for bouncing 

04] 


JAMES PETHEL 

back into our midst and asking how soon we should be ready to 
start. 

Pethel looked at his wife, who looked at me and rather 
strangely asked if I were sure I wanted to go with them. I pro- 
tested that of course I did. Pethel asked her if she really wanted 
to come: ‘You see, dear, there was the run yesterday from 
Calais. And to-morrow you’ll be on the road again, and all the 
days after.’ 

‘Yes,’ said Peggy, ‘Pm sure you’d much rather stay at home, 
darling Mother, and have a good rest.’ 

‘Shall we go and put on our things, Peggy?’ replied Mrs. 
Pethel, rising from her chair. She asked her husband whether 
he were taking the chauffeur with him. He said he thought not. 

‘Oh, hurrah!’ cried Peggy. ‘Then I can be on the front seat!’ 

‘No, dear,’ said her mother. ‘I am sure Mr. Beerbohm would 
like to be on the front seat.’ 

‘You’d like to be with Mother, wouldn’t you?’ the girl ap- 
pealed. I replied with all possible emphasis that I should like 
to be with Mrs. Pethel. But presently, when the mother and 
daughter reappeared in the guise of motorists, it became clear 
that my aspiration had been set aside. ‘I am to be with Mother,’ 
said Peggy. 

I was inwardly glad that Mrs. Pethel could, after all, assert 
herself to some purpose. Had I thought she disliked me, I 
should have been hurt; but I was sure her desire that I should 
not sit with her was due merely to a belief that a person on the 

[125] 


SEVEN MEN 

front seat was less safe in case of accidents than a person behind. 
And of course I did not expect her to prefer my life to her 
daughter’s. Poor lady! My heart was with her. As the car 
glided along the sea-front and then under the Norman archway, 
through the town and past the environs, I wished that her hus- 
band inspired in her as much confidence as he did in me. For 
me the sight of his clear, firm profile (he did not wear motor- 
goggles) was an assurance in itself. From time to time (for I 
too was ungoggled) I looked round to nod and smile cheerfully 
at his wife. She always returned the nod, but left the smile to 
be returned by the daughter. 

Pethel, like the good driver he was, did not talk: just drove. 
But he did, as we came out on to the Rouen road, say that in 
France he always rather missed the British police-traps. ‘Not,’ 
he added, ‘that I’ve ever fallen into one. But the chance that a 
policeman may at any moment dart out, and land you in a bit of 
a scrape, does rather add to the excitement, don’t you think?’ 
Though I answered in the tone of one to whom the chance of a 
police-trap is the very salt of life, I did not inwardly like the 
spirit of his remark. However, I dismissed it from my mind; 
and the sun was shining, and the wind had dropped: it was an 
ideal day for motoring; and the Norman landscape had never 
looked lovelier to me in its width of sober and silvery grace. 

I presently felt that this landscape was not, after all, doing 
itself full justice. Was it not rushing rather too quickly past? 
‘James!’ said a shrill, faint voice from behind; and gradually — 
[126] 


JAMES PETHEL 

‘Oh, darling Mother, really!’ protested another voice — the land- 
scape slackened pace. But after a while, little by little, the land- 
scape lost patience, forgot its good manners, and flew faster, and 
faster than before. The road rushed furiously beneath us, like 
a river in spate. Avenues of poplars flashed past us, every tree 
of them on either side hissing and swishing angrily in the draught 
we made. Motors going Rouen-wards seemed to be past as 
quickly as motors that bore down on us. Hardly had I espied 
in the landscape ahead a chateau or other object of interest be- 
fore I was craning my neck round for a final glimpse of it as it 
faded on the backward horizon. An endless up-hill road was 
breasted and crested in a twinkling and transformed into a de- 
cline near the end of which our car leapt straight across to the 
opposite ascent, and — ‘James!’ again, and again by degrees the 
laws of Nature were re-established, but again by degrees revoked. 
I didn’t doubt that speed in itself was no danger; but when the 
road was about to make a sharp curve why shouldn’t Pethel, just 
as a matter of form, slow down slightly and sound a note or two 
of the hooter? Suppose another car were — well, that was all 
right: the road was clear. But at the next turning, when our 
car neither slackened nor hooted and was , for an instant, full on 
the wrong side of the road, I had within me a contraction which 
(at thought of what must have been if . . .) lasted though all 
was well. Loth to betray fear, I hadn’t turned my face to Pethel. 
Eyes front! And how about that wagon ahead, huge hay-wagon 
plodding with its back to us, seeming to occupy the whole road? 

[127] 


SEVEN MEN 

Surely Pethel would slacken, hoot? No. Imagine a needle 
threaded with one swift gesture from afar. Even so was it that 
we shot, between wagon and road’s edge, through; whereon, con- 
fronting us within a few yards — inches now, but we swerved — 
was a cart, a cart that incredibly we grazed not as we rushed on, 
on. Now indeed had I turned my eyes on Pethel’s profile. And 
my eyes saw there that which stilled, with a greater emotion, all 
fear and wonder in me. 

I think that for the first instant, oddly, what I felt was merely 
satisfaction, not hatred ; for I all but asked him whether by not 
smoking to-day he had got a keener edge to his thrills. I un- 
derstood him, and for an instant this sufficed me. Those pursed- 
out lips, so queerly different from the compressed lips of the 
normal motorist, and seeming, as elsewhere last night, to denote 
no more than pensive interest, had told me suddenly all that I 
needed to know about Pethel. Here, as there — and oh, ever so 
much better here than there! — he could gratify the passion that 
was in him. No need of any ‘make-believe’ here! I remem- 
bered the strange look he had given when I asked if his gambling 
were always ‘a life-and-death affair.’ Here was the real thing 
— the authentic game, for the highest stakes! And here was I, 
a little extra-stake tossed on to the board. He had vowed I had 
it ‘in’ me to do ‘something big.’ Perhaps, though, there had 
been a touch of his make-believe about that. . . I am afraid it 
was not before my thought about myself that my moral sense be- 
gan to operate and my hatred of Pethel set in. But I claim that 


JAMES PETHEL 

I did see myself as no more than a mere detail in his villainy. 
Nor, in my just wrath for other sakes, was I without charity even 
for him. I gave him due credit for risking his own life — for 
having doubtless risked it, it and none other, again and again 
in the course of his adventurous — and abstemious — life by field 
and flood. I was even rather touched by memory of his insist- 
ence last night on another glass of that water which just might 
give him typhoid; rather touched by memory of his unsaying 
that he ‘never’ touched alcohol — he who, in point of fact, had 
to be always gambling on something or other. I gave him due 
credit, too, for his devotion to his daughter. But his use of that 
devotion, his cold use of it to secure for himself the utmost thrill 
of gambling, did seem utterly abominable to me. 

And it was even more for the mother than for the daughter 
that I was incensed. That daughter did not know him, did but 
innocently share his damnable love of chances. But that wife 
had for years known him at least as well as I knew him now. 
Here again, I gave him credit for wishing, though he didn’t 
love her, to spare her what he could. That he didn’t love her I 
presumed from his indubitable willingness not to stake her in 
this afternoon’s game. . That he never had loved her — had taken 
her, in his precocious youth, simply as a gigantic chance against 

him was likely enough. So much the more credit to him for 

such consideration as he showed her; but little enough this was. 
He could wish to save her from being a looker-on at his game; 
but he could, he couldn’t not, go on playing. Assuredly she was 

[129] 


SEVEN MEN 

right in deeming him at once the strongest and the weakest of 
men. ‘Rather a nervous woman’! I remembered an engraving 
that had hung in my room at Oxford — and in scores of other 
rooms there: a presentment by Sir Marcus (then Mr.) Stone of 
a very pretty young person in a Gainsborough hat, seated be- 
neath an ancestral elm, looking as though she were about to cry, 
and entitled ‘A Gambler’s Wife.’ Mrs. Pethel was not like that. 
Of her there were no engravings for undergraduate hearts to 
melt at. But there was one man, certainly, whose compassion 
was very much at her service. How was he going to help her? 

I know not how many hair’s-breadth escapes we may have 
had while these thoughts passed through my brain. I had closed 
my eyes. So preoccupied was I that, but for the constant rush 
of air against my face, I might, for aught I knew, have been 
sitting ensconced in an arm-chair at home. After a while, I 
was aware that this rush had abated; I opened my eyes to the 
old familiar streets of Rouen. We were to have tea at the 
Hotel d’Angleterre. What was to be my line of action? 
Should I take Pethel aside and say ‘Swear to me, on your word 
of honour as a gentleman, that you will never again touch the 
driving-gear (or whatever you call it) of a motor-car. Other- 
wise I shall expose you to the world. Meanwhile, we shall re- 
turn to Dieppe by train’? He might flush — for I knew him 
capable of flushing — as he asked me to explain. And after? 
He would laugh in my face. He would advise me not to go 
motoring any more. He might even warn me not to go back to 


f 


JAMES PETHEL 

Dieppe in one of those dangerous railway-trains. He might 
even urge me to wait until a nice Bath chair had been sent out 
for me from England. . . 

I heard a voice (mine, alas) saying brightly ‘Well, here we 
are!’ I helped the ladies to descend. Tea was ordered. Pethel 
refused that stimulant and had a glass of water. I had a liqueur 
brandy. It was evident to me that tea meant much to Mrs. 
Pethel. She looked stronger after her second cup, and younger 
after her third. Still, it was my duty to help her, if I could. 
While I talked and laughed, I did not forget that. But — what 
on earth was I to do? I am no hero. I hate to be ridiculous. 
I am inveterately averse from any sort of fuss. Besides, how 
was I to be sure that my own personal dread of the return- 
journey hadn’t something to do with my intention of tackling 
Pethel? I thought it had. What this woman would dare daily 
because she was a mother, could not I dare once? I reminded 
myself of Pethel’s reputation for invariable luck. I reminded 
myself that he was an extraordinarily skilful driver. To that 
skill and luck I would pin my faith. . . 

What I seem to myself, do you ask of me? 

But I answered your question a few lines back. Enough that 
my faith was rewarded. We did reach Dieppe safely. I still 
marvel that we did. 

That evening, in the vestibule of the Casino, Grierson came 
up to me: ‘Seen Jimmy Pethel? He was asking for you. Wants 

[131] 


SEVEN MEN 

to see you particularly. He’s in the baccarat room, punting — 
winning hand over fist, of course. Said he’d seldom met a man 
he liked more than you. Great character, what?’ One is al- 
ways glad to be liked, and I plead guilty to a moment’s gratifica- 
tion at the announcement that Pethel liked me. But I did not 
go and seek him in the baccarat room. A great character as- 
suredly he was ; but of a kind with which (very imperfect though 
I am, and no censor) I prefer not to associate. 

Why he had particularly wanted to see me was made clear 
in a note sent by him to my room early next morning. He won- 
dered if I could be induced to join them in their little tour. He 
hoped I wouldn’t think it great cheek, his asking me. He 
thought it might rather amuse me to come. It would be a very 
great pleasure for his wife. He hoped I wouldn’t say No. 
Would I send a line by bearer? They would be starting at 3 
o’clock. He was mine sincerely. 

It was not too late to tackle him, even now. Should I go 
round to his hotel? I hesitated and — well, I told you at the out- 
set that my last meeting with him was on the morrow of my first. 
I forget what I wrote to him, but am sure that the excuse I made 
for myself was a good and graceful one, and that I sent my kind- 
est regards to Mrs. Pethel. She had not (I am sure of that, 
too) authorised her husband to say she would like me to come 
with them. Else would not the thought of her have haunted 
me so poignantly as for a long time it did. I do not know 
whether she is still alive. No mention is made of her in the 

[132] 


JAMES PETHEL 

obituary notice which woke these memories in me. This notice 
I will, however, transcribe, because (for all its crudeness of 
phraseology) it is rather interesting both as an echo and as an 
amplification. Its title is — ‘Death of Wealthy Aviator.’ Its 
text is — ‘Widespread regret will be felt in Leicestershire at the 
tragic death of Mr. James Pethel, who had long resided there 
and was very popular as an all-round sportsman. In recent 
years he had been much interested in aviation, and had become 
j^ne of the most enthusiastic of amateur airmen. Yesterday 
afternoon he fell down dead quite suddenly as he was returning 
to his house, apparently in his usual health and spirits, after 
descending from a short flight which despite an extremely high 
wind he had made on his new biplane and on which he was ac- 
companied by his married daughter and her infant son. It is 
not expected that an inquest will be necessary, as his physician, 
Dr. Saunders, has certified death to be due to heart-disease, from 
which, it appears, the deceased gentleman had been suffering 
for some years. Dr. Saunders adds that he had repeatedly 
warned deceased that any strain on the nervous system might 
prove fatal.’ 

Thus — for I presume that his ailment had its origin in his 
habits — James Pethel did not, despite that merely pensive look 
of his, live his life with impunity. And by reason of that life he 
died. As for the manner of his death, enough that he did die. 
Let not our hearts be vexed that his great luck was with him to 
the end. 


[133] 




A. V. LAIDER 













A. V. LAIDER 


I UNPACKED my things and went down to await lunch- 
eon. 

It was good to be here again in this little old sleepy 
hostel by the sea. Hostel I say, though it spelt itself without an 
s and even placed a circumflex above the o. It made no other 
pretension. It was very cosy indeed. 

I had been here just a year before, in mid-February, after an 
attack of influenza. And now I had returned, after an attack 
of influenza. Nothing was changed. It had been raining when 
I left, and the waiter — there was but a single, a very old waiter — 
had told me it was only a shower. That waiter was still here, not 
a day older. And the shower had not ceased. 

Steadfastly it fell on to the sands, steadfastly into the iron-grey 
sea. I stood looking out at it from the windows of the hall, ad- 
miring it very much. There seemed to be little else to do. 
What little there was I did. I mastered the contents of a blue 
hand-bill which, pinned to the wall just beneath the framed en- 
graving of Queen Victoria’s Coronation, gave token of a concert 
that was to be held — or rather, was to have been held some weeks 
ago — i n the Town Hall, for the benefit of the Life-Boat Fund. 
I looked at the barometer, tapped it, was not the wiser. I 

037 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

glanced at a pamphlet about Our Dying Industries (a theme 
on which Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was at that time trying to 
alarm us). I wandered to the letter-board. 

These letter-boards always fascinate me. Usually some two 
or three of the envelopes stuck into the cross-garterings have a 
certain newness and freshness. They seem sure they will yet be 
claimed. Why not? Why shouldn't John Doe, Esq., or Mrs. 
Richard Roe, turn up at any moment? I do not know. I can 
only say that nothing in the world seems to me more unlikely. 
Thus it is that these young bright envelopes touch my heart even 
more than do their dusty and sallow seniors. Sour resignation 
is less touching than impatience for what will not be, than the 
eagerness that has to wane and wither. Soured beyond measure 
these old envelopes are. They are not nearly so nice as they 
should be to the young ones. They lose no chance of sneering 
and discouraging. Such dialogues as this are only too frequent: 

A Very Young Envelope. Something in me whispers that 
he will come to-day! 

A Very Old Envelope. He? Well, that’s good! Ha, ha, 
ha! Why didn’t he come last week, when you came? What 
reason have you for supposing he’ll ever come now ? It isn’t as 
if he were a frequenter of the place. He’s never been here. 
His name is utterly unknown here. You don’t suppose he’s 
coming on the chance of finding you ? 

A V. Y. E. It may seem silly, but — something in me whis- 


pers- 


A. V. LAIDER 

A V. O. E. Something in you ? One has only to look at you 
to see there’s nothing in you but a note scribbled to him by a 
cousin. Look at me l There are three sheets, closely written, 
in me. The lady to whom I am addressed 

A V. Y. E. Yes, sir, yes ; you told me all about her yesterday. 

A V. O. E. And I shall do so to-day and to-morrow and 
every day and all day long. That .young lady was a widow. 
She stayed here many times. She was delicate, and the air 
suited her. She was poor, and the tariff was just within her 
means. She was lonely, and had need of love. I have in me for 
her a passionate avowal and strictly honourable proposal, writ- 
ten to her, after many rough copies, by a gentleman who had 
made her acquaintance under this very roof. He was rich, he 
was charming, he was in the prime of life. He had asked if he 
might write to her. She had flutteringly granted his request. 
He posted me to her the day after his return to London. I 
looked forward to being torn open by her. I was very sure she 
would wear me and my contents next to her bosom. She was 
gone. She had left no address. She never returned. . . This 
I tell you, and shall continue to tell you, not because I want any 
of your callow sympathy, — no, thank you! — but that you may 
judge how much less than slight are the chances that you your- 
self — 

But my reader has overheard these dialogues as often as I. 
He wants to know what was odd about this particular letter- 
board before which I was standing. At first glance I saw noth- 

[139] 


SEVEN MEN 

in g odd about it. But presently I distinguished a handwriting 
that was vaguely familiar. It was mine. I stared, I wondered. 
There is always a slight shock in seeing an envelope of one’s own 
after it has gone through the post. It looks as if it had gone 
through so much. But this was the first time I had ever seen 
an envelope of mine eating its heart out in bondage on a letter- 
board. This was outrageous. This was hardly to be believed. 
Sheer kindness had impelled me to write to ‘A. V. Laider, Esq.’, 
and this was the result! I hadn’t minded receiving no answer. 
Only now, indeed, did I remember that I hadn’t received one. 
In multitudinous London the memory of A. V. Laider and his 
trouble had soon passed from my mind. But — well, what a les- 
son not to go out of one’s way to write to casual acquaintances! 

My envelope seemed not to recognise me as its writer. Its 
gaze was the more piteous for being blank. Even so had I once 
been gazed at by a dog that I had lost and, after many days, 
found in the Battersea Home. T don’t know who you are, but 
whoever you are, claim me, take me out of this!’ That was my 
dog’s appeal. This was the appeal of my envelope. 

I raised my hand to the letter-board, meaning to effect a swift 
and lawless rescue, but paused at sound of a footstep behind me. 
The old waiter had come to tell me that my luncheon was ready. 
I followed him out of the hall, not, however, without a bright 
glance across my shoulder to reassure the little captive that I 
should come back. 

I had the sharp appetite of the convalescent, and this the sea- 
C140] 


A. V. LAIDER 

air had whetted already to a finer edge. In touch with a dozen 
oysters, and with stout, I soon shed away the unreasoning anger 
I had felt against A. V. Laider. I became merely sorry for him 
that he had not received a letter which might perhaps have com- 
forted him. In touch with cutlets, I felt how sorely he had 
needed comfort. And anon, by the big bright fireside of that 
small dark smoking-room where, a year ago, on the last evening 
of my stay here, he and I had at length spoken to each other, I 
reviewed in detail the tragic experience he had told me; and I 
fairly revelled in reminiscent sympathy with him. . . . 

i 

A. V. LAIDER — I had looked him up in the visitors’ book on 
the night of his arrival. I myself had arrived the day before, 
and had been rafher sorry there was no one else staying here. 
A convalescent by the sea likes to have some one to observe, to 
wonder about, at meal-time. I was glad when, on my second 
evening, I found seated at the table opposite to mine another 
guest. I was the gladder because he was just the right kind of 
quest. He was enigmatic. By this I mean that he did not look 
soldierly nor financial nor artistic nor anything definite at all. 
He offered a clean slate for speculation. And thank heaven I 
he evidently wasn’t going to spoil the fun by engaging me in 
conversation later on. A decently unsociable man, anxious to 
be left alone. 

The heartiness of his appetite, in contrast with his extreme 
fragility of aspect and limpness of demeanour, assured me that 


SEVEN MEN 

he, too, had just had influenza. I liked him for that. Now and 
again our eyes met and were instantly parted. We managed, as 
a rule, to observe each other indirectly. I was sure it was not 
merely because he had been ill that he looked interesting. Nor 
did it seem to me that a spiritual melancholy, though I imagined 
him sad at the best of times, was his sole asset. I conjectured 
that he was clever. I thought he might also be imaginative. 
At first glance I had mistrusted him. A shock of white hair, 
combined with a young face and dark eyebrows, does somehow 
make a man look like a charlatan. But it is foolish to be guided 
by an accident of colour. I had soon rejected my first impres- 
sion of my fellow-diner. I found him very sympathetic. 

Anywhere but in England it would be impossible for two 
solitary men, howsoever much reduced by influenza, to spend five 
or six days in the same hostel and not exchange a single word. 
That is one of the charms of England. Had Laider and I been 
born and bred in any other land we should have become ac- 
quainted before the end of our first evening in the small smoking- 
room, and have found ourselves irrevocably committed to go on 
talking to each other throughout the rest of our visit. We 
might, it is true, have happened to like each other more than 
any one we had ever met. This off-chance may have occurred 
to us both. But it counted for nothing as against the certain 
surrender of quietude and liberty. We slightly bowed to each 
other as we entered or left the dining-room or smoking-room, 
and as we met on the widespread sands or in the shop that had a 

[H 2 ! 


A. V. LAIDER 

small and faded circulating library. That was all. Our mu- 
tual aloofness was a positive bond between us. 

Had he been much older than I, the responsibility for our 
silence would of course have been his alone. But he was not, I 
judged, more than five or six years ahead of me, and thus I might 
without impropriety have taken it on myself to perform that hard 
and perilous feat which English people call, with a shiver, 
‘breaking the ice.’ He had reason, therefore, to be as grateful to 
me as I to him. Each of us, not the less frankly because silently, 
recognised his obligation to the other. And when, on the last 
evening of my stay, the ice actually was broken no ill-will rose 
between us : neither of us was to blame. 

It was a Sunday evening. I had been out for a long last walk 
and had come in very late to dinner. Laider left his table al- 
most immediately after I sat down to mine. When I entered 
the smoking-room I found him reading a weekly review which I 
had bought the day before. It was a crisis. He could not 
silently offer, nor could I have silently accepted, sixpence. It 
was a crisis. We faced it like men. He made, by word of 
mouth, a graceful apology. Verbally, not by signs, I besought 
him to go on reading. But this, of course, was a vain counsel of 
perfection. The social code forced us to talk now. We obeyed 
it like men. To reassure him that our position was not so des- 
perate as it might seem, I took the earliest opportunity to men- 
tion that I was going away early next morning. In the tone of 
his ‘Oh, are you?’ he tried bravely to imply that he was sorry, 

[ J 43] 


SEVEN MEN 

even now, to hear that. In a way, perhaps, he really was sorry. 
We had got on so well together, he and I. Nothing could efface 
the memory of that. Nay, we seemed to be hitting it off even 
now. Influenza was not our sole theme. We passed from that 
to the aforesaid weekly review, and to a correspondence that was 
raging therein on Faith and Reason. 

This correspondence had now reached its fourth and penulti- 
mate stage — its Australian stage. It is hard to see why these 
correspondences spring up; one only knows that they do spring 
up, suddenly, like street crowds. There comes, it would seem, 
a moment when the whole English-speaking race is uncon- 
sciously bursting to have its say about some one thing — the split 
infinitive, or the habits of migratory birds, or faith and reason, 
or what-not. Whatever weekly review happens at such a mo- 
ment to contain a reference, however remote, to the theme in 
question reaps the storm. Gusts of letters blow in from all 
corners of the British Isles. These are presently reinforced by 
Canada in full blast. A few weeks later the Anglo-Indians 
weigh in. In due course we have the help of our Australian 
cousins. By that time, however, we of the Mother Country have 
got our second wind, and so determined are we to make the 
most of it that at last even the Editor suddenly loses patience and 
says ‘This correspondence must now cease. — Ed.’ and wonders 
why on earth he ever allowed anything so tedious and idiotic to 
begin. 

I pointed out to Laider one of the Australian letters that had 

[144] 


A. V. LAIDER 

especially pleased me in the current issue. It was from ‘A 
Melbourne Man/ and was of the abrupt kind which declares 
that ‘all your correspondents have been groping in the dark’ and 
then settles the whole matter in one short sharp flash. The flash 
in this instance was ‘Reason is faith, faith reason — that is all we 
know on earth and all we need to know.’ The writer then in- 
closed his card and was, etc., ‘A Melbourne Man.’ I said to 
Laider how very restful it was, after influenza, to read anything 
that meant nothing whatsoever. Laider was inclined to take the 
letter more seriously than I, and to be mildly metaphysical. I 
said that for me faith and reason were two separate things, and 
(as I am no good at metaphysics, however mild) I offered a 
definite example, to coax the talk on to ground where I should be 
safer. ‘Palmistry, for example/ I said. ‘Deep down in my 
heart I believe in palmistry.’ 

Laider turned in his chair. ‘You believe in palmistry?’ 

I hesitated. ‘Yes, somehow I do. Why? I haven’t the 
slightest notion. I can give myself all sorts of reasons for laugh- 
ing it to scorn. My common sense utterly rejects it. Of course 
the shape of the hand means something — is more or less an index 
of character. But the idea that my past and future are neatly 
mapped out on my palms ’ I shrugged my shoulders. 

‘You don’t like that idea?’ asked Laider in his gentle, rather 
academic voice. 

‘I only say it’s a grotesque idea.’ 

‘Yet you do believe in it?’ 


SEVEN MEN 

‘I’ve a grotesque belief in it, yes.’ 

‘Are you sure your reason for calling this idea “grotesque” 
isn’t merely that you dislike it?’ 

‘Well,’ I said, with the thrilling hope that he was a companion 
in absurdity, ‘doesn’t it seem grotesque to you?’ 

‘It seems strange.’ 

‘You believe in it?’ 

‘Oh, absolutely.’ 

‘Hurrah!’ 

He smiled at my pleasure, and I, at the risk of re-entangle- 
ment in metaphysics, claimed him as standing shoulder to shoul- 
der with me against ‘A Melbourne Man.’ This claim he gently 
disputed. ‘You may think me very prosaic,’ he said, ‘but I can’t 
believe without evidence.’ 

‘Well, I’m equally prosaic and equally at a disadvantage: I 
can’t take my own belief as evidence, and I’ve no other evidence 
to go on.’ 

He asked me if I had ever made a study of palmistry. I said 
I had read one of Desbarolles’ books years ago, and one ,of 
Heron-Alien’s. But, he asked, had I tried to test them by the 
lines on my own hands or on the hands of my friends? I con- 
fessed that my actual practice in palmistry had been of a merely 
passive kind — the prompt extension of my palm to any one who 
would be so good as to ‘read’ it and truckle for a few minutes to 
my egoism. (I hoped Laider might do this.) 

‘Then I almost wonder,’ he said, with his sad smile, ‘that you 
[146] 


A. V. LAIDER 

haven’t lost your belief, after all the nonsense you must have 
heard. There are so many young girls who go in for palmistry. 
I am sure all the five foolish virgins were “awfully keen on it” 
and used to say “You can be led, but not driven,” and “You are 
likely to have a serious illness between the ages of forty and forty- 
five,” and “You are by nature rather lazy, but can be very en- 
ergetic by fits and starts.” And most of the professionals, I’m 
told, are as silly as the young girls.’ 

For the honour of the profession, I named three practitioners 
whom I had found really good at reading character. He asked 
whether any of them had been right about past events. I con- 
fessed that, as a matter of fact, all three of them had been right in 
the main. This seemed to amuse him. He asked whether any 
of them had predicted anything which had since come true. I 
confessed that all three had predicted that I should do several 
things which I had since done rather unexpectedly. He asked 
if I didn’t accept this as at any rate a scrap of evidence. I said 
I could only regard it as a fluke — a rather remarkable fluke. 

The superiority of his sad smile was beginning to get on my 
nerves. I wanted him to see that he was as absurd as I. ‘Sup- 
pose,’ I said, ‘suppose for sake of argument that you and I are 
nothing but helpless automata created to do just this and that, 
and to have just that and this done to us. Suppose, in fact, we 
haven't any free will whatsoever. Is it likely or conceivable that 
the Power that fashioned us would take the trouble to jot down 
in cipher on our hands just what was in store for us?’ 


[147] 


SEVEN MEN 

Laider did not answer this question, he did but annoyingly ask 
me another. ‘You believe in free will?’ 

‘Yes, of course. I’ll be hanged if I’m an automaton.’ 

‘And you believe in free will just as in palmistry — without any 
reason?’ 

‘Oh, no. Everything points to our having free will.’ 

‘Everything? What, for instance?’ 

This rather cornered me. I dodged out, as lightly as I could, 
by saying ‘I suppose you would say it was written in my hand 
that I should be a believer in free will.’ 

‘Ah, I’ve no doubt it is.’ 

I held out my palms. But, to my great disappointment, he 
looked quickly away from them. He had ceased to smile. 
There was agitation in his voice as he explained that he never 
looked at people’s hands now. ‘Never now — never again.’ He 
shook his head as though to beat off some memory. 

I was much embarrassed by my indiscretion. I hastened to 
tide over the awkward moment by saying that if I could read 
hands I wouldn’t, for fear of the awful things I might see there. 

‘Awful things, yes,’ he whispered, nodding at the fire. 

‘Not,’ I said in self-defence, ‘that there’s anything very awful, 
so far as I know, to be read in my hands.’ 

He turned his gaze from the fire to me. ‘You aren’t a mur- 
derer, for example?’ 

‘Oh, no,’ I replied, with a nervous laugh. 

‘7 am.’ 

[i 4 8] 


A. V. LAIDER 

This was a more than awkward, it was a painful, moment for 
me; and I am afraid I must have started or winced, for he in- 
stantly begged my pardon. ‘I don’t know,’ he exclaimed, ‘why 
I said it. I’m usually a very reticent man. But sometimes — ’ 
He pressed his brow. ‘What you must think of me!’ 

I begged him to dismiss the matter from his mind. 

‘It’s very good of you to say that; but — I’ve placed myself as 
well as you in a false position. I ask you to believe that I’m not 
the sort of man who is “wanted” or ever was “wanted” by the 
police. I should be bowed out of any police-station at which I 
gave myself up. I’m not a murderer in any bald sense of the 
word. No.’ 

My face must have perceptibly brightened, for ‘Ah,’ he said, 
‘don’t imagine I’m not a murderer at all. Morally, I am.’ He 
looked at the clock. I pointed out that the night was young. 
He assured me that his story was not a long one. I assured him 
that I hoped it was. He said I was very kind. I denied this. 
He warned me that what he had to tell might rather tend to 
stiffen my unwilling faith in palmistry, and to shake my opposite 
and cherished faith in free will. I said ‘Never mind.’ He 
stretched his hands pensively toward the fire. I settled myself 
back in my chair. 

‘My hands,’ he said, staring at the backs of them, ‘are the hands 
of a very weak man. I dare say you know enough of palmistry 
to see that for yourself. You notice the slightness of the thumbs 
and of the two “little” fingers. They are the hands of a weak 

[149] 


SEVEN MEN 

and over-sensitive man — a man without confidence, a man who 
would certainly waver in an emergency. Rather Hamlet-ish 
hands,’ he mused. ‘And I’m like Hamlet in other respects, too: 
I’m no fool, and I’ve rather a noble disposition, and I’m unlucky. 
But Hamlet was luckier than I in one thing: he was a murderer 
by accident, whereas the murders that I committed one day 
fourteen years ago — for I must tell you it wasn’t one murder, but 
many murders that I committed — were all of them due to the 
wretched inherent weakness of my own wretched self. 

‘I was twenty-six — no, twenty-seven years old, and rather a 
nondescript person, as I am now. I was supposed to have been 
called to the Bar. In fact, I believe I had been called to the 
Bar. I hadn’t listened to the call. I never intended to practise, 
and I never did practise. I only wanted an excuse in the eyes 
of the world for existing. I suppose the nearest I have ever 
come to practising is now at this moment: I am defending a 
murderer. My father had left me well enough provided with 
money. I was able to go my own desultory way, riding my 
hobbies where I would. I had a good stableful of hobbies. 
Palmistry was one of them. I was rather ashamed of this one. 
It seemed to me absurd, as it seems to you. Like you, though, I 
believed in it. Unlike you, I had done more than merely read 
a book or so about it. I had read innumerable books about it. 
I had taken casts of all my friends’ hands. I had tested and 
tested again the points at which Desbarolles dissented from the 
gypsies, and — well, enough that I had gone into it all rather 

[150] 


A. V. L AIDER 

thoroughly, and was as sound a palmist as a man may be without 
giving his whole life to palmistry. 

‘One of the first things I had seen in my own hand, as soon as 
I had learned to read it, was that at about the age of twenty-six 
I should have a narrow escape from death — from a violent death. 
There was a clean break in the life-line, and a square joining it 
— the protective square, you know. The markings were pre- 
cisely the same in both hands. It was to be the narrowest escape 
possible. And I wasn’t going to escape without injury, either. 
That is what bothered me. There was a faint line connecting 
the break in the life-line with a star on the line of health. 
Against that star was another square. I was to recover from the 
injury, whatever it might be. Still, I didn’t exactly look forward 
to it. Soon after I had reached the age of twenty-five, I began 
to feel uncomfortable. The thing might be going to happen at 
any moment. In palmistry, you know, it is impossible to pin an 
event down hard and fast to one year. This particular event was 
to be when I was about twenty-six; it mightn’t be till I was 
twenty-seven ; it might be while I was only twenty-five. 

‘And I used to tell myself that it mightn’t be at all. My rea- 
son rebelled against the whole notion of palmistry, just as yours 
does. I despised my faith in the thing, just as you despise yours. 
I used to try not to be so ridiculously careful as I was whenever I 
crossed a street. I lived in London at that time. Motor-cars 
had not yet come in, but — what hours, all told, I must have spent 
standing on curbs, very circumspect, very lamentable! It was 

[I5i] 


SEVEN MEN 

a pity, I suppose, that I had no definite occupation — something 
to take me out of myself. I was one of the victims of private 
means. There came a time when I drove in four-wheelers 
rather than in hansoms, and was doubtful of four-wheelers. 
Oh, I assure you, I was very lamentable indeed. 

‘If a railway-journey could be avoided, I avoided it. My 
uncle had a place in Hampshire. I was very fond of him and 
of his wife. Theirs was the only house I ever went to stay in 
now. I was there for a week in November, not long after my 
twenty-seventh birthday. There were other people staying 
there, and at the end of the week we all travelled back to London 
together. There were six of us in the carriage : Colonel Elbourn 
and his wife and their daughter, a girl of seventeen; and another 
married couple, the Blakes. I had been at Winchester with 
Blake, but had hardly seen him since that time. He was in the 
Indian Civil, and was home on leave. He was sailing for India 
next week. His wife was to remain in England for some months, 
and then join him out there. They had been married five years. 
She was now just twenty-four years old. He told me that this 
was her age. 

‘The Elbourns I had never met before. They were charming 
people. We had all been very happy together. The only 
trouble had been that on the last night, at dinner, my uncle asked 
me if I still went in for “the gypsy business,” as he always called 
it; and of course the three ladies were immensely excited, and 
implored me to “do” their hands. I told them it was all non- 
[152] 


A. V. LAIDER 

sense, I said I had forgotten all I once knew, I made various 
excuses; and the matter dropped. It was quite true that I had 
given up reading hands. I avoided anything that might remind 
me of what was in my own hands. And so, next morning, it 
was a great bore to me when, soon after the train started, Mrs. 
Elbourn said it would be “too cruel” of me if I refused to do 
their hands now. Her daughter and Mrs. Blake also said it 
would be “brutal” ; and they were all taking off their gloves, and 
— well, of course I had to give in. 

‘I went to work methodically on Mrs. Elbourn’s hands, in the 
usual way, you know, first sketching the character from the backs 
of them ; and there was the usual hush, broken by the usual little 
noises — grunts of assent from the husband, cooings of recognition 
from the daughter. Presently I asked to see the palms, and 
from them I filled in the details of Mrs. Elbourn’s character be- 
fore going on to the events in her life. But while I talked I 
was calculating how old Mrs. Elbourn might be. In my first 
glance at her palms I had seen that she could not have been less 
than twenty-five when she married. The daughter was seven- 
teen. Suppose the daughter had been born a year later — how 
old would the mother be? Forty-three, yes. Not less than that, 
poor woman !’ 

Laider looked at me. Why “poor woman,” you wonder? 
Well, in that first glance I had seen other things than her mar- 
riage-line. I had seen a very complete break in the lines of life 
and of fate. I had seen violent death there. At what age? 

[iS3] 


SEVEN MEN 

Not later, not possibly later , than forty-three. While I talked 
to her about the things that had happened in her girlhood, the 
back of my brain was hard at work on those marks of catastrophe. 
I was horribly wondering that she was still alive. It was im- 
possible that between her and that catastrophe there could be 
more than a few short months. And all the time I was talking; 
and I suppose I acquitted myself well, for I remember that when 
I ceased I had a sort of ovation from the Elbourns. 

‘It was a relief to turn to another pair of hands. Mrs. Blake 
was an amusing young creature, and her hands were very char- 
acteristic, and prettily odd in form. I allowed myself to be 
rather whimsical about her nature, and, having begun in that 
vein, I went on in it — somehow — even after she had turned her 
palms. In those palms were reduplicated the signs I had seen 
in Mrs. Elbourn’s. It was as though they had been copied neatly 
out. The only difference was in the placing of them; and it was 
this difference that was the most horrible point. The fatal age 
in Mrs. Blake’s hands was — not past, no, for here she was. But 
she might have died when she was twenty-one. Twenty-three 
seemed to be the utmost span. She was twenty-four, you know. 

‘I have said that I am a weak man. And you will have good 
proof of that directly. Yet I showed a certain amount of 
strength that day — yes, even on that day which has humiliated 
and saddened the rest of my life. Neither my face nor my voice 
betrayed me when in the palms of Dorothy Elbourn I was again 
confronted with those same signs. She was all for knowing the 

[154] 


A. V. LAIDER 

future, poor child! I believe I told her all manner of things 
that were to be. And she had no future — none, none in this 
world — except 

‘And then, while I talked, there came to me suddenly a sus- 
picion. I wondered it hadn’t come before. You guess what it 
was? It made me feel very cold and strange. I went on talk- 
ing. But, also, I went on — quite separately — thinking. The 
suspicion wasn’t a certainty. This mother and daughter were 
always together. What was to befall the one might anywhere — 
anywhere — befall the other. But a like fate, in an equally near 
future, was in store for that other lady. The coincidence was 
curious, very. Here we all were together — here, they and I — I 
who was narrowly to escape, so soon now, what they, so soon 
now, were to suffer. Oh, there was an inference to be drawn. 
Not a sure inference, I told myself. And always I was talking, 
talking, and the train was swinging and swaying noisily along — 
to what? It was a fast train. Our carriage was near the engine. 
I was talking loudly. Full well I had known what I should 
see in the Colonel’s hands. I told myself I had not known. I 
told myself that even now the thing I dreaded was not sure to 
be. Don’t think I was dreading it for myself. I wasn’t so 
“lamentable” as all that — now. It was only of them that I 
thought — only for them. I hurried over the Colonel’s character 
and career; I was perfunctory. It was Blake’s hands that I 
wanted. They were the hands that mattered. If they had the 
marks Remember, Blake was to start for India in the com- 

[15s] 


SEVEN MEN 

ing week, his wife was to remain in England. They would be 
apart. Therefore 

‘And the marks were there. And I did nothing — nothing 
but hold forth on the subtleties of Blake’s character. There was 
a thing for me to do. I wanted to do it. I wanted to spring to 
the window and pull the communication-cord. Quite a simple 
thing to do. Nothing easier than to stop a train. You just give 
a sharp pull, and the train slows down, comes to a standstill. 
And the Guard appears at your window. You explain to the 
Guard. 

‘Nothing easier than to tell him there is going to be a collision. 
Nothing easier than to insist that you and your friends and every 
other passenger in the train must get out at once. . . There are 
easier things than this? Things that need less courage than this? 
Some of them I could have done, I-daresay. This thing I was 
going to do. Oh, I was determined that I would do it — directly. 

‘I had said all I had to say about Blake’s hands. I had 
brought my entertainment to an end. I had been thanked and 
complimented all round. I was quite at liberty. I was going 
to do what I had to do. I was determined, yes. 

‘We were near the outskirts of London. The air was grey, 
thickening; and Dorothy Elbourn had said, “Oh, this horrible 
old London! I suppose there’s the same old fog!” And pres- 
ently I heard her father saying something about “prevention” 
and “a short act of Parliament” and “anthracite.” And I sat 
and listened and agreed and ’ 

[156] 


A. V. LAIDER 

Laider closed his eyes. He passed his hand slowly through 
the air. 

‘I had a racking headache. And when I said so, I was told 
not to talk. I was in bed, and the nurses were always telling me 
not to talk. I was in a hospital. I knew that. But I didn’t 
know why I was there. One day I thought I should like to 
know why, and so I asked. I was feeling much better now. 
They told me, by degrees, that I had had concussion of the brain. 
I had been brought there unconscious, and had remained uncon- 
scious for forty-eight hours. I had been in an accident — a rail- 
way accident. This seemed to me odd. I had arrived quite 
safely at my uncle’s place, and I had no memory of any journey 
since that. In cases of concussion, you know, it’s not uncommon 
for the patient to forget all that happened just before the acci- 
dent; there may be a blank of several hours. So it was in my 
case. One day my uncle was allowed to come and see me. And 
somehow, suddenly, at sight of him, the blank was filled in. I 
remembered, in a flash, everything. I was quite calm, though. 
Or I made myself seem so, for I wanted to know how the col- 
lision had happened. My uncle told me that the engine-driver 
had failed to see a signal because of the fog, and our train had 
crashed into a goods-train. I didn’t ask him about the people 
who were with me. You see, there was no need to ask. Very 
gently my uncle began to tell me, but — I had begun to talk 
strangely, I suppose. I remember the frightened look of my 
uncle’s face, and the nurse scolding him in whispers. 

[ J S7] 


SEVEN MEN 

‘After that, all a blur. It seems that I became very ill indeed, 
wasn’t expected to live. However, I live.’ 

There was a long silence. Laider did not look at me, nor I 
at him. The fire was burning low, and he watched it. 

At length he spoke. ‘You despise me. Naturally. I despise 
myself.’ 

‘No ; I don’t despise you; but ’ 

‘You blame me.’ I did not meet his gaze. ‘You blame me,’ 
he repeated. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘And there, if I may say so, you are a little unjust. It isn’t 
my fault that I was born weak.’ 

‘But a man may conquer weakness.’ 

‘Yes, if he is endowed with the strength for that.’ 

His fatalism drew from me a gesture of disgust. ‘Do you 
really mean,’ I asked, ‘that because you didn’t pull that cord, you 
couldn't have pulled it?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘And it’s written in your hands that you couldn’t?’ 

He looked at the palms of his hands. ‘They are the hands of 
a very weak man,’ he said. 

‘A man so weak that he cannot believe in the possibility of 
free will for himself or for any one?’ 

‘They are the hands of an intelligent man, who can weigh 
evidence and see things as they are.’ 

[158] 


A. V. LAIDER 

‘But answer me: Was it fore-ordained that you should not 
pull that cord?’ 

‘It was fore-ordained.’ 

‘And was it actually marked in your hands that you were not 
going to pull it?’ 

‘Ah, well, you see, it is rather the things one is going to do that 
are actually marked. The things one isn't going to do, — the in- 
numerable negative things, — how could one expect them to be 
marked?’ 

‘But the consequences of what one leaves undone may be posi- 
tive?’ 

‘Horribly positive,’ he winced. ‘My hand is the hand of a 
man who has suffered a great deal in later life.’ 

‘And was it the hand of a man destined to suffer?’ 

‘Oh, yes. I thought I told you that.’ 

There was a pause. 

‘Well,’ I said, with awkward sympathy, ‘I suppose all hands 
are the hands of people destined to suffer.’ 

‘Not of people destined to suffer so much as I have suffered — 
as I still suffer.’ 

The insistence of his self-pity chilled me, and I harked back 
to a question he had not straightly answered. ‘Tell me: Was 
it marked in your hands that you were not going to pull that 
cord?’ 

Again he looked at his hands, and then, having pressed them 


SEVEN MEN 

for a moment to his face, ‘It was marked very clearly,’ he an- 
swered, ‘in their hands.’ 

Two or three days after this colloquy there had occurred to 
me in London an idea — an ingenious and comfortable doubt. 
How was Laider to be sure that his brain, recovering from con- 
cussion, had remembered what happened in the course of that 
railway-journey? How was he to know that his brain hadn’t 
simply, in its abeyance, invented all this for him? It might be 
that he had never seen those signs in those hands. Assuredly, 
here was a bright loop-hole. I had forthwith written to Laider, 
pointing it out. 

This was the letter which now, at my second visit, I had found 
miserably pent on the letter-board. I remembered my promise 
to rescue it. I arose from the retaining fireside, stretched my 
arms, yawned, and went forth to fulfil my Christian purpose. 
There was no one in the hall. The ‘shower’ had at length ceased. 
The sun had positively come out, and the front door had been 
thrown open in its honour. Everything along the sea-front was 
beautifully gleaming, drying, shimmering. But I was not to 
be diverted from my errand. I went to the letter-board. And 
— my letter was not there! Resourceful and plucky little thing 
— it had escaped! I did hope it would not be captured and 
brought back. Perhaps the alarm had already been raised by 
the tolling of that great bell which warns the inhabitants for 
miles around that a letter has broken loose from the letter-board. 
[160] 


A. V. LAIDER 

I had a vision of my envelope skimming wildly along the coast- 
line, pursued by the old but active waiter and a breathless pack 
of local worthies. I saw it out-distancing them all, dodging past 
coast-guards, doubling on its tracks, leaping breakwaters, un- 
luckily injuring itself, losing speed, and at last, in a splendour of 
desperation, taking to the open sea. But suddenly I had another 
idea. Perhaps Laider had returned? 

He had. I espied afar on the sands a form that was recognisa- 
bly, by the listless droop of it, his. I was glad and sorry — rather 
glad, because he completed the scene of last year; and very sorry, 
because this time we should be at each other’s mercy: no restful 
silence and liberty, for either of us, this time. Perhaps he had 
been told I was here, and had gone out to avoid me while he yet 
could. Oh weak, weak! Why palter? I put on my hat and 
coat, and marched out to meet him. 

‘Influenza, of course?’ we asked simultaneously. - 

There is a limit to the time which one man may spend in talk- 
ing to another about his own influenza; and presently, as we 
paced the sands, I felt that Laider had passed this limit. I won- 
dered that he didn’t break off and thank me now for my letter. 
He must have read it. He ought to have thanked me for it at 
once. It was a very good letter, a remarkable letter. But surely 
he wasn’t waiting to answer it by post? His silence about it 
gave me the absurd sense of having taken a liberty, confound 
him! He was evidently ill at ease while he talked. But it 
wasn’t for me to help him out of his difficulty, whatever that 


SEVEN MEN 

might be. It was for him to remove the strain imposed on my- 
self. 

Abruptly, after a long pause, he did now manage to say, ‘It 
was — very good of you to — to write me that letter.’ He told me 
he had only just got it, and he drifted away into otiose explana- 
tions of this fact. I thought he might at least say it was a re- 
markable letter; and you can imagine my annoyance when he 
said, after another interval, ‘I was very much touched indeed.’ 
I had wished to be convincing, not touching. I can’t bear to be 
called touching. 

‘Don’t you,’ I asked, ‘think it is quite possible that your brain 
invented all those memories of what — what happened before that 
accident?’ 

He drew a sharp sigh. ‘You make me feel very guilty.’ 

‘That’s exactly what I tried to make you not feel!’ 

‘I know, yes. That’s why I feel so guilty.’ 

We had paused in our walk. He stood nervously prodding 
the hard wet sand with his walking-stick. ‘In a way,’ he said, 
‘your theory was quite right. But — it didn’t go far enough. 
It’s not only possible, it’s a fact, that I didn’t see those signs in 
those hands. I never examined those hands. They weren’t 
there. I wasn’t there. I haven’t an uncle in Hampshire, even. 
I never had.’ 

I, too, prodded the sand. ‘Well,’ I said at length, ‘I do feel 
rather a fool.’ 

‘I’ve no right even to beg your pardon, but ’ 


A. V. LAIDER 

‘Oh, I’m not vexed. Only — I rather wish you hadn’t told me 
this.’ 

‘I wish I hadn’t had to. It was your kindness, you see, that 
forced me. By trying to take an imaginary load off my con- 
science, you laid a very real one on it.’ 

‘I’m sorry. But you, of your own free will, you know, ex- 
posed your conscience to me last year. I don’t yet quite under- 
stand why you did that.’ 

‘No, of course not. I don’t deserve that you should. But I 
think you will. May I explain? I’m afraid I’ve talked a great 
deal already about my influenza, and I shan’t be able to keep it 
out of my explanation. Well, my weakest point — I told you 
this last year, but it happens to be perfectly true that my weakest 
point — is my will. Influenza, as you know, fastens unerringly 
on one’s weakest point. It doesn’t attempt to undermine my 
imagination. That would be a forlorn hope. I have, alas! a 
very strong imagination. At ordinary times* my imagination 
allows itself to be governed by my will. My will keeps it in 
check by constant nagging. But when my will isn’t strong 
enough even to nag, then my imagination stampedes. I become 
even as a little child. I tell myself the most preposterous fables, 
and — the trouble is — I can’t help telling them to my friends. 
Until I’ve thoroughly shaken off influenza, I’m not fit company 
for any one. I perfectly realise this, and I have the good sense 
to go right away till I’m quite well again. I come here usually. 
It seems absurd, but I must confess I was sorry last year when we 


SEVEN MEN 

fell into conversation. I knew I should very soon be letting my- 
self go, or rather, very soon be swept away. Perhaps I ought to 
have warned you; but — I’m a rather shy man. And then you 
mentioned the subject of palmistry. You said you believed in 
it. I wondered at that. I had once read Desbarolles’ book 
about it, but I am bound to say I thought the whole thing very 
great nonsense indeed.’ 

‘Then,’ I gasped, ‘it isn’t even true that you believe in palm- 
istry?’ 

‘Oh, no. But I wasn’t able to tell you that. You had begun 
by saying that you believed in palmistry, and then you proceeded 
to scoff at it. While you scoffed I saw myself as a man with a 
terribly good reason for not scoffing; and in a flash I saw the 
terribly good reason; I had the whole story — at least I had the 
broad outlines of it — clear before me.’ 

‘You hadn’t ever thought of it before?’ He shook his head. 
My eyes beamed. ‘The whole thing was a sheer improvisation?’ 

‘Yes,’ said Laider, humbly, ‘I am as bad as all that. I don’t 
say that all the details of the story I told you that evening were 
filled in at the very instant of its conception. I was filling them 
in while we talked about palmistry in general, and while I was 
waiting for the moment when the story would come in most ef- 
fectively. And I’ve no doubt I added some extra touches in the 
course of the actual telling. Don’t imagine that I took the 
slightest pleasure in deceiving you. It’s only my will, not my 
conscience, that is weakened after influenza. I simply can’t help 


A. V. LAIDER 

telling what I’ve made up, and telling it to the best of my ability. 
But I’m thoroughly ashamed all the time.’ 

‘Not of your ability, surely?’ 

‘Yes, of that, too,’ he said with his sad smile. ‘I always feel 
that I’m not doing justice to my idea.’ 

‘You are too stern a critic, believe me.’ 

‘It is very kind of you to say that. You are very kind alto- 
gether. Had I known that you were so essentially a man of the 
world — in the best sense of that term — I shouldn’t have so much 
dreaded seeing you just now and having to confess to you. But 
I’m not going to take advantage of your urbanity and your easy- 
going ways. I hope that some day we may meet somewhere 
when I haven’t had influenza and am a not wholly undesirable 
acquaintance. As it is, I refuse to let you associate with me. I 
am an older man than you, and so I may without impertinence 
warn you against having anything to do with me.’ 

I deprecated this advice, of course; but, for a man of weak- 
ened will, he showed great firmness. ‘You,’ he said, in your 
heart of hearts don’t want to have to walk and talk continually 
with a person who might at any moment try to bamboozle you 
with some ridiculous tale. And I, for my part, don’t want to 
degrade myself by trying to bamboozle any one — especially one 
whom I have taught to see through me. Let the two talks we 
have had be as though they had not been. Let us bow to each 
other, as last year, but let that be all. Let us follow in all things 
the precedent of last year.’ 

[165] 


SEVEN MEN 

With a smile that was almost gay he turned on his heel, and 
moved away with a step that was almost brisk. I was a little 
disconcerted. But I was also more than a little glad. The rest- 
fulness of silence, the charm of liberty — these things were not, 
after all, forfeit. My heart thanked Laider for that; and 
throughout the week I loyally seconded him in the system he had 
laid down for us. All was as it had been last year. We did not 
smile to each other, we merely bowed, when we entered or left 
the dining-room or smoking-room, and when we met on the wide- 
spread sands or in that shop which had a small and faded, but 
circulating, library. 

Once or twice in the course of the week it did occur to me that 
perhaps Laider had told the simple truth at our first interview 
and an ingenious lie at our second. I frowned at this possibility. 
The idea of any one wishing to be quit of me was most distasteful. 
However, I was to find reassurance. On the last evening of my 
stay, I suggested, in the small smoking-room, that he and I 
should, as sticklers for precedent, converse. We did so, very 
pleasantly. And after a while I happened to say that I had 
seen this afternoon a great number of sea-gulls flying close to 
the shore. 

‘Sea-gulls?’ said Laider, turning in his chair. 

‘Yes. And I don’t think I had ever realised how extraor- 
dinarily beautiful they are when their wings catch the light.’ 

‘Beautiful?’ Laider threw a quick glance at me and away 
from me. ‘You think them beautiful?’ 

[166] 


A. V. LAIDER 


‘Surely.’ 

‘Well, perhaps they are, yes; I suppose they are. But — I 
don’t like seeing them. They always remind me of something — 
rather an awful thing — that once happened to me.’ .... 

It was a very awful thing indeed. 


\ 


[167] 


















































































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‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN 






































, 






















































‘SAVONAROLA' BROWN 


I LIKE to remember that I was the first to call him so, for, 
though he always deprecated the nickname, in his heart he 
was pleased by it, I know, and encouraged to go on. 

Quite apart from its significance, he had reason to welcome 
it. He had been unfortunate at the font. His parents, at the 
time of his birth, lived in Ladbroke Crescent, W. They must 
have been an extraordinarily unimaginative couple, for they 
could think of no better name for their child than Ladbroke. 
This was all very well for him till he went to school. But you 
can fancy the indignation and delight of us boys at finding among 
us a new-comer who, on his own confession, had been named 
after a Crescent. I don’t know how it is nowadays, but thirty- 
five years ago, certainly, schoolboys regarded the possession of 
any Christian name as rather unmanly. As we all had these 
encumbrances, we had to wreak our scorn on any one who was 
cumbered in a queer fashion. I myself, bearer of a Christian 
name adjudged eccentric though brief, had had much to put up 
with in my first term. Brown’s arrival, therefore, at the begin- 
ning of my second term, was a good thing for me, and I am afraid 
I was very prominent among his persecutors. Trafalgar Brown, 


SEVEN MEN 

Tottenham Court Brown, Bond Brown — what names did we 
little brutes not cull for him from the London Directory? Ex- 
cept how miserable we made his life, I do not remember much 
about him as he was at that time, and the only important part of 
the little else that I do recall is that already he showed a strong 
sense for literature. For the majority of us Carthusians, litera- 
ture was bounded on the north by Whyte Melville, on the south 
by Hawley Smart, on the east by the former, and on the west by 
the latter. Little Brown used to read Harrison Ainsworth, 
Wilkie Collins, and other writers whom we, had we assayed 
them, would have dismissed as ‘deep.’ It has been said by Mr. 
Arthur Symons that ‘all art is a mode of escape.’ The art of 
letters did not, however, enable Brown to escape so far from 
us as he would have wished. In my third term he did not re- 
appear among us. His parents had in some sort atoned. Un- 
imaginative though they were, it seems they could understand a 
tale of woe laid before them circumstantially, and had engaged 
a private tutor for their boy. Fifteen years elapsed before I saw 
him again. 

This was at the second night of some play. I was dramatic 
critic for the Saturday Review , and, weary of meeting the same 
lot of people over and over again at first nights, had recently 
sent a circular to the managers asking that I might have seats 
for second nights instead. I found that there existed as distinct 
and invariable a lot of second-nighters as of first-nighters. The 
second-nighters were less ‘showy’ ; but then, they came rather to 
[172] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN 

see than to be seen, and there was an air, that I liked, of earnest- 
ness and hopefulness about them. I used to write a great deal 
about the future of the British drama, and they, for their part, 
used to think and talk a great deal about it. People who care 
about books and pictures find much to interest and please them 
in the present. It is only the students of the theatre who always 
fall back, or rather forward, on the future. Though second- 
nighters do come to see, they remain rather to hope and pray. I 
should have known anywhere, by the visionary look in his eyes, 
that Brown was a confirmed second-nigh ter. 

What surprises me is that I knew he was Brown. It is true 
that he had not grown much in those fifteen years : his brow was 
still disproportionate to his body, and he looked young to have 
become ‘confirmed’ in any habit. But it is also true that not 
once in the past ten years, at any rate, had he flitted through my 
mind and poised on my conscience. 

I hope that I and those other boys had long ago ceased from 
recurring to him in nightmares. Cordial though the hand was 
that I offered him, and highly civilised my whole demeanour, he 
seemed afraid that at any moment I might begin to dance around 
him, shooting out my lips at him and calling him Seven-Sisters 
Brown or something of that kind. It was only after constant 
meetings at second nights, and innumerable entr’acte talks about 
the future of the drama, that he began to trust me. In course of 
time we formed the habit of walking home together as far as 
Cumberland Place, at which point our ways diverged. I gath- 

073 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

ered that he was still living with his parents, but he did not tell 
me where, for they had not, as I learned by reference to the Red 
Book, moved from Ladbroke Crescent. 

I found his company restful rather than inspiring. His days 
were spent in clerkship at one of the smaller Government Offices, 
his evenings — except when there was a second night — in reading 
and writing. He did not seem to know much, or to wish to 
know more, about life. Books and plays, first editions and sec- 
ond nights, were what he cared for. On matters of religion and 
ethics he was as little keen as he seemed to be on human character 
in the raw; so that (though I had already suspected him of writ- 
ing, or meaning to write, a play) my eyebrows did rise when he 
told me he meant to write a play about Savonarola. 

He made me understand, however, that it was rather the name 
than the man that had first attracted him. He said that the 
name was in itself a great incentive to blank-verse. He uttered 
it to me slowly, in a voice so much deeper than his usual voice, 
that I nearly laughed. For the actual bearer of the name he 
had no hero-worship, and said it was by a mere accident that he 
had chosen him as central figure. He had thought of writing a 
tragedy about Sardanapalus ; but the volume of the “Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica” in which he was going to look up the main 
facts about Sardanapalus happened to open at Savonarola. 
Hence a sudden and complete peripety in the student’s mind. 
He told me he had read the Encyclopaedia’s article carefully, and 
had dipped into one or two of the books there mentioned as 

r.174] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN 

authorities. He seemed almost to wish he hadn’t. Tacts get 
in one’s way so,’ he complained. ‘History is one thing, drama is 
another. Aristotle said drama was more philosophic than his- 
tory because it showed us what men would do, not just what they 
did . I think that’s so true, don’t you? I want to show what 
Savonarola would have done if — ’ He paused. 

‘If what?’ 

‘Well, that’s just the point. I haven’t settled that yet. When 
I’ve thought of a plot, I shall go straight ahead.’ 

I said I supposed he intended his tragedy rather for the study 
than for the stage. This seemed to hurt him. I told him that 
what I meant was that managers always shied at anything with- 
out ‘a strong feminine interest.’ This seemed to worry him. I 
advised him not to think about managers. He promised that he 
would think only about Savonarola. 

I know now that this promise was not exactly kept by him; 
and he may have felt slightly awkward when, some weeks later, 
he told me he had begun the play. ‘I’ve hit on an initial idea,’ 
he said, ‘and that’s enough to start with. I gave up my notion 
of inventing a plot in advance. I thought it would be a mistake. 
I don’t want puppets on wires. I want Savonarola to work out 
his destiny in his own way. Now that I have the initial idea, 
what I’ve got to do is to make Savonarola live . I hope I shall 
be able to do this. Once he’s alive, I shan’t interfere with him. 
I shall just watch him. Won’t it be interesting? He isn’t alive 
yet. But there’s plenty of time. You see, he doesn’t come on at 

[175] 


SEVEN MEN 

the rise of the curtain. A Friar and a Sacristan come on and talk 
about him. By the time they’ve finished, perhaps he’ll be alive. 
But they won’t have finished yet. Not that they’re going to say 
very much. But I write slowly.’ 

I remember the mild thrill I had when, one evening, he took 
me aside and said in an undertone, ‘Savonarola has come on. 
Alive!’ For me the MS. hereinafter printed has an interest that 
for you it cannot have, so a-bristle am I with memories of the 
meetings I had with its author throughout the nine years he 
took over it. He never saw me without reporting progress, or 
lack of progress. Just what was going on, or standing still, he 
did not divulge. After the entry of Savonarola, he never told 
me what characters were appearing. ‘All sorts of people ap- 
pear,’ he would say rather helplessly. ‘They insist. I can’t 
prevent them.’ I used to say it must be great fun to be a creative 
artist; but at this he always shook his head : ‘I don’t create. They 
do. Savonarola especially, of course. I just look on and record. 
I never know what’s going to happen next.’ He had the ad- 
vantage of me in knowing at any rate what had happened last. 
But whenever I pled for a glimpse he would again shake his 
head: 

‘The thing must be judged as a whole. Wait till I’ve come to 
the end of the Fifth Act.’ 

So impatient did I become that, as the years went by, I used 
rather to resent his presence at second nights. I felt he ought 
to be at his desk. His, I used to tell him, was the only drama 
[176] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN 

whose future ought to concern him now. And in point of fact 
he had, I think, lost the true spirit of the second-nighter, and 
came rather to be seen than to see. He liked the knowledge that 
here and there in the auditorium, when he entered it, some one 
would be saying ‘Who is that?’ and receiving the answer ‘Oh, 
don’t you know? That’s “Savonarola” Brown.’ This sort of 
thing, however, did not make him cease to be the modest, un- 
affected fellow I had known. He always listened to the advice 
I used to offer him, though inwardly he must have chafed at it. 
Myself a fidgety and uninspired person, unable to begin a piece 
of writing before I know just how it shall end, I had always 
been afraid that sooner or later Brown would take some turning 
that led nowhither — would lose himself and come to grief. This 
fear crept into my gladness when, one evening in the spring of 
1909, he told me he had finished the Fourth Act. Would he 
win out safely through the Fifth? 

He himself was looking rather glum; and, as we walked away 
from the theatre, I said to him, ‘I suppose you feel rather like 
Thackeray when he’d “killed the Colonel” ; you’ve got to kill the 
Monk.’ 

‘Not quite that,’ he answered. ‘But of course he’ll die very 
soon now. A couple of years or so. And it does seem rather 
sad. It’s not merely that he’s so full of life. He has been be- 
coming much more human lately. At first I only respected him. 
Now I have a real affection for him.’ 


SEVEN MEN 

This was an interesting glimpse at last, but I turned from it to 
my besetting fear. 

‘Haven’t you,’ I asked, ‘any notion of how he is to die?’ 

Brown shook his head. 

‘But in a tragedy,’ I insisted, ‘the catastrophe must be led up 
to, step by step. My dear Brown, the end of the hero must be 
logical and rational.’ 

‘I don’t see that,’ he said, as we crossed Piccadilly Circus. 
‘In actual life it isn’t so. What is there to prevent a motor- 
omnibus from knocking me over and killing me at this moment?’ 

At that moment, by what has always seemed to me the strangest 
of coincidences, and just the sort of thing that playwrights ought 
to avoid, a motor-omnibus knocked Brown over and killed him. 

He had, as I afterwards learned, made a will in which he ap- 
pointed me his literary executor. Thus passed into my hands 
the unfinished play by whose name he had become known to so 
many people. 

I hate to say that I was disappointed in it, but I had better 
confess quite frankly that, on the whole, I was. Had Brown 
written it quickly and read it to me soon after our first talk about 
it, it might in some ways have exceeded my hopes. But he had 
become for me, by reason of that quiet and unhasting devotion 
to his work while the years came and went, a sort of hero ; and 
the very mystery involving just what he was about had addicted 

[178] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN 

me to those ideas of magnificence which the unknown is said 
always to foster. 

Even so, however, I am not blind to the great merits of the 
play as it stands. It is well that the writer of poetic drama 
should be a dramatist and a poet. Here is a play that abounds 
in striking situations, and I have searched it vainly for one line 
that does not scan. What I nowhere feel is that I have not else- 
where been thrilled or lulled by the same kind of thing. I do 
not go so far as to say that Brown inherited his parents’ deplora- 
ble lack of imagination. But I do wish he had been less sensi- 
tive than he was to impressions, or else had seen and read fewer 
poetic dramas ancient and modern. Remembering that vision- 
ary look in his eyes, remembering that he was as displeased as I 
by the work of all living playwrights, and as dissatisfied with the 
great efforts of the Elizabethans, I wonder that he was not more 
immune from influences. 

Also, I cannot but wish still that he had faltered in his decision 
to make no scenario. There is much to be said for the theory 
that a dramatist should first vitalise his characters and then leave 
them unfettered; but I do feel that Brown’s misused the confi- 
dence he reposed in them. The labour of so many years has 
somewhat the air of being a mere improvisation. Savonarola 
himself, after the First Act or so, strikes me as utterly inconsist- 
ent. It may be that he is just complex, like Hamlet. He does 
in the Fourth Act show traces of that Prince. I suppose this is 

[179] 


SEVEN MEN 

why he struck Brown as having become ‘more human.’ To me 
he seems merely a poorer creature. 

But enough of these reservations. In my anxiety for poor 
Brown’s sake that you should not be disappointed, perhaps I 
have been carrying tactfulness too far and prejudicing you 
against that for which I specially want your favour. Here, 
without more ado, is 


SAVONAROLA 
A Tragedy 
by 

L. BROWN 
ACT I 

SCENE: A Room in the Monastery of San Marco , Florence. 
TIME: 1490. A.D. A summer morning. 

Enter the SACRISTAN and a FRIAR. 

Sacr. 

Savonarola looks more grim to-day 
Than ever. Should I speak my mind, I’d say 
That he was fashioning some new great scourge 
To flay the backs of men. 

[180] 


‘S A VON AROLA’ 

Fri. 

’Tis even so. 

Brother Filippo saw him stand last night 
In solitary vigil till the dawn 
Lept o’er the Arno, and his face was such 
As men may wear in Purgatory — nay, 

E’en in the inmost core of Hell’s own fires. 

SACR. 

I often wonder if some woman’s face, 

Seen at some rout in his old worldling days, 
Haunts him e’en now, e’en here, and urges him 
To fierier fury ’gainst the Florentines. 

Fri. 

Savonarola love-sick! Ha, ha, ha! 

Love-sick? He, love-sick? ’Tis a goodly jest! 
The confirm’d misogyn a ladies’ man! 

Thou must have eaten of some strange red herb 
That takes the reason captive. I will swear 
Savonarola never yet hath seen 
A woman but he spurn’d her. Hist! He comes. 

[Enter SAVONAROLA, rapt in thought .] 


[181] 


Give thee good morrow, Brother. 


SEVEN MEN 

Sacr. 

And therewith 

A multitude of morrows equal-good 

Till thou, by Heaven’s grace, hast wrought the work 

Nearest thine heart. 


SAV. 

I thank thee, Brother, yet 
I thank thee not, for that my thankfulness 
(An such there be) gives thanks to Heaven alone. 

Fri. [To Sacr.] 

’Tis a right answer he hath given thee. 

Had Sav’narola spoken less than thus, 

Methinks me, the less Sav’narola he. 

As when the snow lies on yon Apennines, 

White as the hem of Mary Mother’s robe, 

And insusceptible to the sun’s rays, 

Being harder to the touch than temper’d steel, 
E’en so this great gaunt monk white-visaged 
Upstands to Heaven and to Heav’n devotes 
The scarped thoughts that crown the upper slopes 
Of his abrupt and austere nature. 


[182] 


Sacr. 


Aye. 


‘SAVONAROLA 5 

[Enter LUCREZIA BORGIA, ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI, 
and Leonardo da Vinci. Luc. is thickly veiled .] 

St. Fran. 

This is the place. 


LUC. [ Pointing at SAV.J 
And this the man! [Aside.] And I — 
By the hot blood that courses i’ my veins 
I swear it ineluctably — the woman! 


Sav. 

Who is this wanton? 

[LUC. throws back her hood, revealing her face . 

SAV. starts back, gazing at her.] 

St. Fran. 

Hush, Sir! ’Tis my little sister 
The poisoner, right well-belov’d by all 
Whom she as yet hath spared. Hither she came 
Mounted upon another little sister of mine — 

A mare, caparison’d in goodly wise. 

She — I refer now to Lucrezia — 

Desireth to have word of thee anent 
Some matter that befrets her. 


SEVEN MEN 

Sav. [To Luc.] 

Hence! Begone! 

Savonarola will not tempted be 
By face of woman e’en tho’ ’t be, tho’ ’tis, 

Surpassing fair. All hope abandon therefore. 

I charge thee: Vade retro, Satanas. 

Leonardo 

Sirrah, thou speakst in haste, as is the way 
Of monkish men. The beauty of Lucrezia 
Commends, not discommends, her to the eyes 
Of keener thinkers than I take thee for. 

I am an artist and an engineer, 

Giv’n o’er to subtile dreams of what shall be 
On this our planet. I foresee a day 
When men shall skim the earth i’ certain chairs 
Not drawn by horses but sped on by oil 
Or other matter, and shall thread the sky 
Birdlike. 

Luc. 

It may be as thou sayest, friend, 

Or may be not. [To Sav.] But touching this our errand, 

I crave of thee, Sir Monk, an audience 
Instanter. 

[ j 8 4 ] 


‘SAVONAROLA 5 

Fri. 

Lo! Here Alighieri comes. 

I had methought me he was still at Parma. 

[Enter DANTE.] 

St. Fran. [To Dan.] 

How fares my little sister Beatrice? 

Dan. 

She died, alack, last sennight. 

St. Fran. 

Did she so? 

If the condolences of men avail 
Thee aught, take mine. 


Dan. 

They are of no avail. 

Sav. [To Luc.] 

I do refuse thee audience. 


Luc. 


Then why 


[185] 


Didst thou not say so promptly when I ask’d it? 


SEVEN MEN 

Sav. 

Full well thou knowst that I was interrupted 
By Alighieri’s entry. 

[Noise without. Enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting .] 

What is this? 

Luc. 

I did not think that in this cloister’d spot 
There would be so much doing. I had look’d 
To find Savonarola all alone 
And tempt him in his uneventful cell. 

Instead o’ which — Spurn’d am I? I am I. 

There was a time, Sir, look to ’t! O damnation! 

What is ’t? Anon then! These my toys, my gauds, 

That in the cradle — aye, ’t my mother’s breast — 

I puled and lisped at, — ’Tis impossible, 

Tho’, faith, ’tis not so, forasmuch as ’tis. 

And I a daughter of the Borgias! — 

Or so they told me. Liars! Flatterers! 

Currying lick-spoons! Where’s the Hell of ’t then? 

’Tis time that I were going. Farewell, Monk, 

But I’ll avenge me ere the sun has sunk. 

[Exeunt LUC., ST. FRAN., and LEONARDO, followed by DAN. 
SAV., having watched LUC. out of sight , sinks to his knees , 
sobbing. FRI. and SACR. watch him in amazement . Guelfs 
and Ghibellines continue fighting as the Curtain falls.'] 


C 1 86] 


'SAVONAROLA’ 


ACT II 

TIME: Afternoon of same day . 

SCENE: Lucrezia ’ s Laboratory. Retorts , test-tubes, etc. 
On small Renaissance table, up C., is a great poison-bowl, the 
contents of which are being stirred by the FIRST APPRENTICE. 
The Second Apprentice stands by, watching him. 

Second App. 

For whom is the brew destin’d? 

First App. 

I know not. 

Lady Lucrezia did but lay on me 
Injunctions as regards the making of ’t, 

The which I have obey’d. It is compounded 
Of a malignant and a deadly weed 
Found not save in the Gulf of Spezia, 

And one small phial of ’t, I am advis’d, 

Were more than ’nough to slay a regiment 
Of Messer Malatesta’s condottieri 
In all their armour. 


[187] 


Second App. 

I can well believe it. 


SEVEN MEN 

Mark how the purple bubbles froth upon 
The evil surface of its nether slime! 

[Enter LUC.] 

Luc. [To First App.] 
Is’t done, Sir Sluggard? 


First App. 

Madam, to a turn. 

Luc. 

Had it not been so, I with mine own hand 
Would have outpour’d it down thy gullet, knave. 

See, here’s a ring of cunningly-wrought gold 
That I, on a dark night, did purchase from 
A goldsmith on the Ponte Vecchio. 

Small was his shop, and hoar of visage he. 

I did bemark that from the ceiling’s beams 
Spiders had spun their webs for many a year, 

The which hung erst like swathes of gossamer 
Seen in the shadows of a fairy glade, 

But now most woefully were weighted o’er 
With gather’d dust. Look well now at the ring! 
Touch’d here, behold, it opes a cavity 
Capacious of three drops of yon fell stuff. 

Dost heed? Whoso then puts it on his finger 

[i 88] 


‘SAVON AROLA’ 

Dies, and his soul is from his body rapt 
To Hell or Heaven as the case may be. 

Take thou this toy and pour the three drops in. 

[Hands ring to FIRST APP. and comes down C.] 

So, Sav’narola, thou shalt learn that I 
Utter no threats but I do make them good. 

Ere this day’s sun hath wester’d from the view 
Thou art to preach from out the Loggia 
Dei Lanzi to the cits in the Piazza. 

I, thy Lucrezia, will be upon the steps 
To offer thee with phrases seeming-fair 
That which shall seal thine eloquence for ever. 

O mighty lips that held the world in spell 
But would not meet these little lips of mine 
In the sweet way that lovers use — O thin, 

Cold, tight-drawn, bloodless lips, which natheless I 
Deem of all lips the most magnifical 

In this our city 

[Enter the Borgias FOOL.] 

Well, Fool, what’s thy latest? 

Fool 

Aristole’s or Zeno’s, Lady — ’tis neither latest nor last. For, 
marry, if the cobbler stuck to his last, then were his latest his 
last in rebus ambulantibus. Argal, I stick at nothing but cob- 

[189] 


SEVEN MEN 

ble-stones, which, by the same token, are stuck to the road by 
men’s fingers. 

Luc. 

How many crows may nest in a grocer’s jerkin? 

Fool 

A full dozen at cock-crow, and something less under the dog- 
star, by reason of the dew, which lies heavy on men taken by the 
scurvy. 

Luc. [To First App.] 

Methinks the Fool is a fool. 


Fool 

And therefore, by auricular deduction, am I own twin to the 
Lady Lucrezia! 

[Sings.'] 

When pears hang green on the garden wall 
With a nid, and a nod, and a niddy-niddy-o, 

Then prank you, lads and lasses all, 

With a yea and a nay and a niddy-o. 

But when the thrush flies out o’ the frost 
With a nid, [ etc .] 

’Tis time for loons to count the cost, 

With a yea [etc.] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ 

[Enter the PORTER.] 
Porter 

0 my dear Mistress, there is one below 
Demanding to have instant word of thee. 

1 told him that your Ladyship was not 

At home. Vain perjury! He would not take 
Nay for an answer. 


Is he? 


Luc. 

Ah? What manner of man 


Porter 

A personage the like of whom 
Is wholly unfamiliar to my gaze. 

Cowl’d is he, but I saw his great eyes glare 
From their deep sockets in such wise as leopards 
Glare from their caverns, crouching ere they spring 
On their reluctant prey. 


LUC. 

And what name gave he? 
PORTER [After a pause.] 


[191] 


Something-arola. 


SEVEN MEN 


Luc. 

Savon-? [PORTER nods .] Show him up. 

[Exit Porter.] 

Fool 

If he be right astronomically, Mistress, then is he the greater 
dunce in respect of true learning, the which goes by the globe. 
Argal, ’twere better he widened his wind-pipe. 


[. Sings .] 


Fly home, sweet self, 

Nothing’s for weeping, 

Hemp was not made 
For lovers’ keeping, 

Lovers’ keeping, 

Cheerly, cheerly, fly away. 

Hew no more wood 
While ash is glowing, 

The longest grass 
Is lovers mowing, 

Lovers’ mowing, 

Cheerly, 

[ Re-enter PORTER, followed by SAV. Exeunt PORTER, 
Fool, and First and Second Apps.] 

[192] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ 

Sav. 

I am no more a monk, I am a man 
O’ the world. 

[ Throws off cowl and frock , and stands forth in the costume 
of a Renaissance nobleman. LUCREZIA looks him up and 
down.~\ 


Luc. 

Thou cutst a sorry figure. 
Sav. 

Is neither here nor there. I love you, Madam. 

Luc. 

And this, methinks, is neither there nor here, 
For that my love of thee hath vanished, 

Seeing thee thus beprankt. Go pad thy calves! 
Thus mightst thou, just conceivably, with luck, 
Capture the fancy of some serving-wench. 

SAV. 

And this is all thou hast to say to me? 

Luc. 


That 


It is. 


[193] 


I am dismiss’d? 


Sav. 


Luc. 

Thou art. 

Sav. 

’Tis well. 

[. Resumes frock and cowl .] 

Savonarola is himself once more. 


Luc. 

And all my love for him returns to me 
A thousandfold! 


Sav. 

Too late! My pride of manhood 
Is wounded irremediably. I’ll 
To the Piazza, where my flock awaits me. 

Thus do we see that men make great mistakes 
But may amend them when the conscience wakes. 

[ Exit .] 


Luc. 

I’m half avenged now, but only half: 

’Tis with the ring I’ll have the final laugh! 


‘SAVONAROLA 5 

Tho’ love be sweet, revenge is sweeter far. 

To the Piazza! Ha, ha, ha, ha, har! 

[j Seizes ring , and exit. Through open door are heard , as 
the Curtain falls, sounds of a terrific hubbub in the Piazza .] 


ACT III 


SCENE: The Piazza. 

TIME: A few minutes anterior to close of preceding Act. 

The Piazza is filled from end to end with a vast seething 
crowd that is drawn entirely from the lower orders. There is a 
sprinkling of wild-eyed and dishevelled women in it. The men 
are lantern-jawed, with several days f growth of beard. Most 
of them carry rude weapons — staves, bill-hooks, crow-bars, and 
the like — and are in as excited a condition as the women. Some 
of them are bare-headed, others affect a kind of Phrygian cap. 
Cobblers predominate. 

Enter LORENZO DE MEDICI and COSIMO DE MEDICI. They 
wear cloaks of scarlet brocade, and, to avoid notice, hold masks 
to their faces. 


Cos. 

What purpose doth the foul and greasy plebs 
Ensue to-day here? 

[195] 


SEVEN MEN 

Lor. 

I nor know nor care. 

COS. 

How thrall’d thou art to the philosophy 
Of Epicurus! Naught that’s human I 

Deem alien from myself. [To a COBBLER.] Make answer, fellow! 
What empty hope hath drawn thee by a thread 
Forth from the obscene hovel where thou starvest? 

Cob. 

No empty hope, your Honour, but the full 
Assurance that to-day, as yesterday, 

Savonarola will let loose his thunder 
Against the vices of the idle rich 
And from the brimming cornucopia 
Of his immense vocabulary pour 
Scorn on the lamentable heresies 
Of the New Learning and on all the art 
Later than Giotto. 

COS. 

Mark how absolute 

The knave is! 


[196] 


Lor. 

Then are parrots rational 


‘SAVONAROLA 5 

When they regurgitate the thing they hear! 

This fool is but an unit of the crowd, 

And crowds are senseless as the vasty deep 
That sinks or surges as the moon dictates. 

I know these crowds, and know that any man 
That hath a glib tongue and a rolling eye 
Can as he willeth with them. 

[ Removes his mask and mounts steps of Loggia .] 

Citizens! 

[ Prolonged yells and groans from the crowd .] 

Yes, I am he, I am that same Lorenzo 
Whom you have nicknamed the Magnificent. 

[ Further terrific yells , shakings of fists, brandishings of bill - 
hooks, insistent cries of ‘ Death to Lorenzo!’ ‘Down with the 
Magnificent!’ Cobblers on fringe of crowd, down C., ex- 
hibit especially all the symptoms of epilepsy, whooping- 
cough, and other ailments .] 

You love not me. 

[ The crowd makes an ugly rush. LOR. appears likely to be 
dragged down and torn limb from limb, but raises one hand 
in nick of time, and continues .*] 

Yet I deserve your love. 

\The yells are now variegated with dubious murmurs. A 
cobbler down C. thrusts his face feverishly in the face of an- 
other and repeats, in a hoarse interrogative whisper, ‘De- 
serves our love?’] 

[197] 


SEVEN MEN 

Not for the sundry boons I have bestow’d 
And benefactions I have lavished 
Upon Firenze, City of the Flowers, 

But for the love that in this rugged breast 
I bear you. 

[ The yells have now died away , and there is a sharp fall in 
dubious murmurs. The cobbler down C. says, in an ear- 
piercing whisper, f The love he bears us/ drops his lower 
jaw , nods his head repeatedly, and awaits in an intolerable 
state of suspense the orator s next words .] 

I am not a blameless man, 

[Some dubious murmurs .] 
Yet for that I have lov’d you passing much, 

Shall some things be forgiven me. 

[Noises of cordial assent .] 
There dwells 

In this our city, known unto you all, 

A man more virtuous than I am, and 
A thousand times more intellectual ; 

Yet envy not I him, for — shall I name him? — 

He loves not you. His name? I will not cut 
Your hearts by speaking it. Here let it stay 
On tip o’ tongue. 

[Insistent clamour .] 
Then steel you to the shock! — 

Savonarola. 

[i 9 8] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ 

[For a moment or so the crowd reels silently under the 
shock. Cobbler down C. is the first to recover himself and 
cry ‘Death to Savonarola T The cry instantly becomes gen- 
eral. LOR. holds up his hand and gradually imposes si- 
lence.'] 

His twin bug-bears are 

Yourselves and that New Learning which I hold 
Less dear than only you. 

[. Profound sensation. Everybody whispers ‘Than only you 
to everybody else. A woman near steps of Loggia attempts 
to kiss hem of LOR.’S garment.] 

Would you but con 

With me the old philosophers of Hellas, 

Her fervent bards and calm historians, 

You would arise and say ‘We will not hear 
Another word against them!’ 

[ The crowd already says this, repeatedly, with great em- 
phasis.] 

Take the Dialogues 

Of Plato, for example. You will find 
A spirit far more truly Christian 
In them than in the ravings of the sour-soul’d 
Savonarola. 

[. Prolonged cries of ‘Death to the Sour-Souled Savonarola !’ 
Several cobblers detach themselves from the crowd and rush 
away to read the Platonic Dialogues . Enter SAVONAROLA. 

[199] 


SEVEN MEN 

The crowd , as he makes his way through it, gives up all 
further control of its feelings, and makes a noise for which 
even the best zoologists might not find a good comparison . 
The staves and bill-hooks wave like twigs in a storm. One 
would say that SAV. must have died a thousand deaths al- 
ready . He is, however, unharmed and unruffled as he 
reaches the upper step of the Loggia. LOR. meanwhile has 
rejoined COS. in the Piazza .] 

SAV. 

Pax vobiscum, brothers! 

IT his does but exacerbate the crowd’s frenzy. ] 

Voice of a Cobbler 

Hear his false lips cry Peace when there is no 
Peace! 


Sav. 

Are not you ashamed, O Florentines, 

[. Renewed yells , but also some symptoms of manly shame .] 
That hearken’d to Lorenzo and now reel 
Inebriate with the exuberance 
Of his verbosity? 

[ The crowd makes an obvious effort to pull itself together.'] 
A man can fool 

[200] 


‘SAVONAROLA 5 

Some of the people all the time, and can 
Fool all the people sometimes, but he cannot 
Fool all the people all the time. 

[ Loud cheers. Several cobblers clap one another on the 
back. Cries of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ The meeting is now 
well in hand.~\ 

To-day 

I must adopt a somewhat novel course 
In dealing with the awful wickedness 
At present noticeable in this city. 

I do so with reluctance. Hitherto 
I have avoided personalities. 

But now my sense of duty forces me 

To a departure from my custom of 

Naming no names. One name I must and shall 

Name. 

[All eyes are turned on LOR., who smiles uncomfortably .] 
No, I do not mean Lorenzo. He 
Is ’neath contempt. 

[Loud and prolonged laughter , accompanied with hideous 
grimaces at LOR. Exeunt LOR. and COS.] 

I name a woman’s name, 

[The women in the crowd eye one another suspiciously .] 
A name known to you all — four-syllabled, 

Beginning with an L. 


[am] 


SEVEN MEN 

[Pause. Enter hurriedly LUC., carrying the ring. She 
stands , unobserved by any one , on outskirt of crowd. SAV. 
utters the name:] 

Lucrezia! 

LUC. [ With equal intensity.'] 

Savonarola! 

[SAV. starts violently and stares in direction of her voice.] 
Yes, I come, I come! 

[ Forces her way to steps of Loggia. The crowd is much 
bewildered , and the cries of ( Death to Lucrezia Borgia ! } are 
few and sporadic.] 

Why didst thou call me? 

[SAV. looks somewhat embarrassed.] 
What is thy distress? 

I see it all! The sanguinary mob 
Clusters to rend thee! As the antler’d stag, 

With fine eyes glazed from the too-long chase, 

Turns to defy the foam-fleck’d pack, and thinks, 

In his last moment, of some graceful hind 
Seen once afar upon a mountain-top, 

E’en so, Savonarola, didst thou think, 

In thy most dire extremity, of me. 

And here I am ! Courage ! The horrid hounds 
Droop tail at sight of me and fawn away 
Innocuous. 

[202] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ 

\The crowd does indeed seem to have fallen completely 
under the sway of LUC.’S magnetism , and is evidently con- 
vinced that it had been about to make an end of the monk.~\ 
Take thou, and wear henceforth, 

As a sure talisman ’gainst future perils, 

This little, little ring. 

[SAV. makes awkward gesture of refusal. Angry murmurs 
from the crowd. Cries of ‘Take thou the ring!’ ‘Churl!’ 
‘Put it on!’ etc . 

Enter the Borgias FOOL and stands unnoticed on fringe of 
crowd .] 

I hoped you ’Id like it — 

Neat but not gaudy. Is my taste at fault? 

I’d so look’d forward to — [5o&.] No, I’m not crying, 

But just a little hurt. 

[. Hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Also swayings and snarl- 
ings indicative that SAV.’s life is again not worth a moment’s 
purchase. SAV. makes awkward gesture of acceptance, but 
just as he is about to put ring on finger, the FOOL touches his 
lute and sings : — ] 

Wear not the ring, 

It hath an unkind sting, 

Ding, dong, ding. 

Bide a minute, 

There’s poison in it, 


[203] 


SEVEN MEN 

Poison in it, 

Ding-a-dong, dong, ding. 

Luc. 

The fellow lies. 

[The crowd is torn with conflicting opinions . Mingled 
cries of ‘Wear not the ring!’ ‘The fellow lies!’ ‘Bide a 
minute!’ ‘Death to the Fool!’ ‘Silence for the Fool!’ 
‘Ding-a-dong, dong, ding!’ etc.] 

Fool 

[Sings.] 

Wear not the ring, 

For Death’s a robber-king, 

Ding, [etc.] 

There’s no trinket 
Is what you think it, 

What you think it, 

Ding-a-dong, [etc.] 

[SAV. throws ring in LUC.’S face. Enter POPE JULIUS II, 
with Papal army.] 

Pope 

Arrest that man and woman! 

[Re-enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting. SAV. and LUC. 
are arrested by Papal officers. Enter MICHAEL ANGELO. 
[204] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ 

ANDREA DEL Sarto appears for a moment at a window. 
PlPPA passes. Brothers of the Misericordia go by, singing 
a Requiem for Francesca da Rimini. Enter BOCCACCIO, 
BENVENUTO Cellini, and many others, making remarks 
highly characteristic of themselves but scarcely audible 
through the terrific thunderstorm which now bursts over 
Florence and is at its loudest and darkest crisis as the Cur- 
tain falls . ] 


ACT IV 

TIME: Three hours later. 

SCENE: A Dungeon on the ground-floor of the Palazzo Civico. 

The stage is bisected from top to bottom by a wall, on one side 
of which is seen the interior of LUCREZIA’S cell, on the other that 
of Savonarola’s. 

Neither he nor she knows that the other is in the next cell. 
The audience, however, knows this. 

Each cell ( because of the width and height of the proscenium) 
is of more than the average Florentine size, but is bare even to 
the point of severity, its sole amenities being some straw, a hunk 
of bread, and a stone pitcher. The door of each is facing the 
audience. Dim-ish light. 

LUCREZIA wears long and clanking chains on her wrists, as 
does also SAVONAROLA. Imprisonment has left its mark on both 

[205] 


SEVEN MEN 

of them. SAVONAROLA’S hair has turned white. His whole 
pect is that of a very old , old man. LUCREZIA looks no oh 
than before , but has gone mad. 

Sav. 

Alas, how long ago this morning seems 
This evening! A thousand thousand aeons 
Are scarce the measure of the gulf betwixt 
My then and now. Methinks I must have been 
Here since the dim creation of the world 
And never in that interval have seen 
The tremulous hawthorn burgeon in the brake, 

Nor heard the hum o’ bees, nor woven chains 
Of buttercups on Mount Fiesole 
What time the sap lept in the cypresses, 

Imbuing with the friskfulness of Spring 
Those melancholy trees. I do forget 
The aspect of the sun. Yet I was born 
A freeman, and the Saints of Heaven smiled 
Down on my crib. What would my sire have said, 

And what my dam, had anybody told them 
The time would come when I should occupy 
A felon’s cell? O the disgrace of it! — 

The scandal, the incredible come-down! 

It masters me. I see i’ my mind’s eye 

The public prints — ‘Sharp Sentence on a Monk.’ 


‘SAVONAROLA 5 

What then? I thought I was of sterner stuff 
Than is affrighted by what people think. 

Yet thought I so because ’twas thought of me, 

And so ’twas thought of me because I had 
A hawk-like profile and a baleful eye. 

Lo! my soul’s chin recedes, soft to the touch 
As half-churn’d butter. Seeming hawk is dove, 

And dove’s a gaol-bird now. Fie out upon ’t! 

Luc. 

How comes it? I am Empress Dowager 
Of China — yet was never crown’d. This must 
Be seen to. 

[ Quickly gathers some straw and weaves a crown , which she 
puts on.~\ 


Sav. 

O, what a degringolade! 

The great career I had mapp’d out for me — 

Nipp’d i’ the bud. What life, when I come out, 
Awaits me? Why, the very Novices 
And callow Postulants will draw aside 
As I pass by, and say ‘That man hath done 
Time!’ And yet shall I wince? The worst of Time 
Is not in having done it, but in doing ’t. 


C207] 


SEVEN MEN 
Luc. 

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Eleven billion pig-tails 
Do tremble at my nod imperial, — 

The which is as it should be. 

Sav. 

I have heard 

That gaolers oft are willing to carouse 
With them they watch o’er, and do sink at last 
Into a drunken sleep, and then’s the time 
To snatch the keys and make a bid for freedom. 

Gaoler! Ho, Gaoler! 

[ Sounds of lock being turned and bolts withdrawn . Enter 
the Borgias’ FOOL, in plain clothes , carrying bunch of keys.~\ 

I have seen thy face 

Before. 


Fool 

I saved thy life this afternoon, Sir. 

Sav. 

Thou art the Borgias’ Fool? 


Fool 

Say rather, was. 

Unfortunately I have been discharg’d 
[208] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ 

For my betrayal of Lucrezia, 

So that I have to speak like other men — 

Decasyllabically, and with sense. 

An hour ago the gaoler of this dungeon 
Died of an apoplexy. Hearing which, 

I ask’d for and obtain’d his billet. 

Sav. 

Fetch 

A stoup o’ liquor for thyself and me. 

[ Exit Gaoler.] 

Freedom! there’s nothing that thy votaries 
Grudge in the cause of thee. That decent man 
Is doom’d by me to lose his place again 
To-morrow morning when he wakes from out 
His hoggish slumber. Yet I care not. 

[. Re-enter GAOLER with a leathern bottle and two glasses .] 

Ho! 

This is the stuff to warm our vitals, this 
The panacea for all mortal ills 
And sure elixir of eternal youth. 

Drink, bonniman! 

[GAOLER drains a glass and shows signs of instant intoxica- 
tion . SAV. claps him on shoulder and replenishes glass. 
GAOLER drinks again, lies down on floor, and snores . SAV. 


[209] 


SEVEN MEN 

snatches the bunch of keys, laughs long but silently, and 
creeps out on tip-toe, leaving door ajar. 

LUC. meanwhile has lain down on the straw in her cell, and 
fallen asleep . 

Noise of bolts being shot back, jangling of keys, grating of 
lock, and the door of Luc’S cell flies open . SAV. takes two 
steps across the threshold, his arms outstretched and his up- 
turned face transfigured with a great joy.~\ 

How sweet the open air 

Leaps to my nostrils! O the good brown earth 
That yields once more to my elastic tread 
And laves these feet with its remember’d dew! 

[ Takes a few more steps, still looking upwards .] 

Free! — I am free! O naked arc of heaven, 

Enspangled with innumerable — no, 

Stars are not there. Yet neither are there clouds! 

The thing looks like a ceiling! [ Gazes downward .] And this 
thing 

Looks like a floor. [ Gazes around .] And that white bundle yon- 
der 

Looks curiously like Lucrezia. 

[LUC. awakes at sound of her name, and sits up sane .] 
There must be some mistake. 


[210] 


LUC. to her feet .] 

There is indeed! 


'SAVONAROLA’ 

A pretty sort of prison I have come to, 

In which a self-respecting lady’s cell 
Is treated as a lounge! 


Sav. 

I had no notion 

You were in here. I thought I was out there. , 

I will explain — but first I’ll make amends. 

Here are the keys by which your durance ends. 

The gate is somewhere in this corridor, 

And so good-bye to this interior! 

[ Exeunt SAV. and LUC. Noise , a moment later , of a key 
grating in a lock , then of gate creaking on its hinges; 
triumphant laughs of fugitives; loud slamming of gate be- 
hind them . 

In SAV’S cell the GAOLER starts in his sleep , turns his face to 
the wall , and snores more than ever deeply. Through open 
door comes a cloaked figure .] 

Cloaked Figure 
Sleep on, Savonarola, and awake 
Not in this dungeon but in ruby Hell! 

[ Stabs Gaoler , whose snores cease abruptly. Enter POPE 
JULIUS II, with Papal retinue carrying torches . MURD- 
ERER steps quickly back into shadow .] 


[2H] 


SEVEN MEN 

Pope [To body of Gaoler.] 

Savonarola, I am come to taunt 
Thee in thy misery and dire abjection. 

Rise, Sir, and hear me out. 

MURD. [Steps forward.'] 

Great Julius, 

Waste not thy breath. Savonarola’s dead. 

I murder’d him. 


Pope 

Thou hadst no right to do so. 

Who art thou, pray? 


MURD. 

Cesare Borgia, 

Lucrezia’s brother, and I claim a brother’s 
Right to assassinate whatever man 
Shall wantonly and in cold blood reject 
Her timid offer of a poison’d ring. 


Of this anon. 


Is general woe. 
[212] 


Pope 

[Stands over body of GAOLER.] 
Our present business 
No nobler corse hath ever 


‘SAVONAROLA 5 

Impress’d the ground. O, let the trumpets speak it! 

[ Flourish of trumpets.'] 

This was the noblest of the Florentines. 

His character was flawless, and the world 
Held not his parallel. O, bear him hence 
With all such honours as our State can offer. 

He shall interred be with noise of cannon, 

As doth befit so militant a nature. 

Prepare these obsequies. 

\Papal officers lift body of GAOLER.] 
A Papal Officer 

But this is not 

Savonarola. It is some one else. 

CESARE 

Lo! ’tis none other than the Fool that I 
Hoof’d from my household but two hours agone. 

I deem’d him no good riddance, for he had 
The knack of setting tables on a roar. 

What shadows we pursue! Good night, sweet Fool, 

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! 

Pope 

Interred shall he be with signal pomp. 

No honour is too great that we can pay him. 


[213] 


SEVEN MEN 

He leaves the world a vacuum. Meanwhile, 

Go we in chase of the accursed villain 
That hath made escapado from this cell. 

To horse! Away! We’ll scour the country round 
For Sav’narola till we hold him bound. 

Then shall you see a cinder, not a man, 

Beneath the lightnings of the Vatican! 

[Flourish, alarums and excursions, flashes of Vatican light- 
ning, roll of drums, etc. Through open door of cell is led 
in a large milk-white horse, which the POPE mounts as the 
Curtain falls.~\ 

Remember, please, before you formulate your impressions, 
that saying of Brown’s: ‘The thing must be judged as a whole.’ 
I like to think that whatever may seem amiss to us in these Four 
Acts of his would have been righted by collation with that Fifth 
which he did not live to achieve. 

I like, too, to measure with my eyes the yawning gulf between 
stage and study. Very different from the message of cold print 
to our imagination are the messages of flesh and blood across 
footlights to our eyes and ears. In the warmth and brightness 
of a crowded theatre ‘Savonarola’ might, for aught one knows, 
seem perfect. ‘Then why,’ I hear my gentle readers asking, 
‘did you thrust the play on us, and not on a theatrical manager?’ 

That question has a false assumption in it. In the course of 
the past eight years I have thrust ‘Savonarola’ on any number of 

[214] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN 

theatrical managers. They have all of them been (to use the 
technical phrase) Very kind.’ All have seen great merits in 
the work; and if I added together all the various merits thus 
seen I should have no doubt that ‘Savonarola’ was the best play 
never produced. The point on which all the managers are 
unanimous is that they have no use for a play without an ending. 
This is why I have fallen back, at last, on gentle readers, whom 
now I hear asking why I did not, as Brown’s literary executor, 
try to finish the play myself. Can they never ask a question 
without a false assumption in it? I did try, hard, to finish 
‘Savonarola.’ 

Artistically, of course, the making of such an attempt was 
indefensible. Humanly, not so. It is clear throughout the play 
— especially perhaps in Acts III and IV — that if Brown had 
not steadfastly in his mind the hope of production on the stage, 
he had nothing in his mind at all. Horrified though he would 
have been by the idea of letting me kill his Monk, he would 
rather have done even this than doom his play to everlasting un- 
actedness. I took, therefore, my courage in both hands, and 
made out a scenario. . . 

Dawn on summit of Mount Fiesole. Outspread view of 
Florence ( Duomo , Giotto 1 s Tower , etc.) as seen from that em- 
inence . — NlCCOLO MACHIAVELLI, asleep on grass, wakes as sun 
rises. Deplores his exile from Florence, LORENZO’S unappeas- 
able hostility, etc. Wonders if he could not somehow secure the 

[ 315 ] 


SEVEN MEN 

Pope’s favour. Very cynical. Breaks off : But who are these 
that scale the mountain-side? | Savonarola and Lucrezia | 
Borgia! — Enter through a trap-door , back C. [ trap-door veiled 
from audience by a grassy ridge'] ) SAV. and LUC. Both gasping 
and footsore from their climb. [Still, with chains on their 
wrists? or not ?~\ — MACH, steps unobserved behind a cypress and 
listens. — SAV. has a speech to the rising sun — Th’ effulgent hope 
that westers from the east | Daily. Says that his hope , on the 
contrary, lies in escape To that which easters not from out the 
west, | That fix’d abode of freedom which men call | America! 
Very bitter against POPE. — LUC. says that she, for her part, means 
To start afresh in that uncharted land | Which austers not from 
out the antipod, | Australia! — Exit MACH., unobserved, down 
trap-door behind ridge, to betray LUC. and SAV. — Several long- 
ish speeches by SAV. and LUC. Time is thus given for MACH. 
to get into touch with POPE, and time for POPE and retinue to 
reach the slope of Fiesole. SAV., glancing down across ridge, 
sees these sleuth-hounds, points them out to LUC. and cries Be- 
wray’d! Luc. By whom? Sav. I know not, but suspect | 
The hand of that sleek serpent Niccolo | Machiavelli. — SAV. 
and LUC. rush down C., but find their way barred by the foot- 
lights. — LUC. We will not be ta’en | Alive. And here availeth 
us my lore | In what pertains to poison. Yonder herb | [ points 
to a herb growing down R.] Is deadly nightshade. Quick, 
Monk! Pluck we it! — SAV. and LUC. die just as POPE appears 
over ridge, followed by retinue in full cry . — POPE’S annoyance 
[216] 


‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN 

at being foiled is quickly swept away on the great wave of Shake- 
spearean chivalry and charity that again rises in him. He gives 
SAV. a funeral oration similar to the one meant for him in Act 
IV, but even more laudatory and more stricken. Of LUC., too, 
he enumerates the virtues, and hints that the whole terrestrial 
globe shall be hollowed to receive her bones. Ends by saying : 
In deference to this our double sorrow | Sun shall not shine to-day 
nor shine to-morrow. — Sun drops quickly back behind eastern 
horizon, leaving a great darkness on which the Curtain slowly 
falls. 

All this might be worse, yes. The skeleton passes muster. 
But in the attempt to incarnate and ensanguine it I failed wretch- 
edly. I saw that Brown was, in comparison with me, a master. 
Thinking I might possibly fare better in his method of work than 
in my own, I threw the skeleton into a cupboard, sat down, and 
waited to see what Savonarola and those others would do. 

They did absolutely nothing. I sat watching them, pen in 
hand, ready to record their slightest movement. Not a little 
finger did they raise. Yet I knew they must be alive. Brown 
had always told me they were quite independent of him. Ab- 
surd to suppose that by the accident of his own death they had 
ceased to breathe. . . Now and then, overcome with weariness, 
I dozed at my desk, and whenever I woke I felt that these rigid 
creatures had been doing all sorts of wonderful things while 
my eyes were shut. I felt that they disliked me. I came to dis- 

[217] 


SEVEN MEN 

like them in return, and forbade them my room. 

Some of you, my readers, might have better luck with them 
than I. Invite them, propitiate them, watch them! The writer 
of the best Fifth Act sent to me shall have his work tacked on to 
Brown’s ; and I suppose I could get him a free pass for the second 
night. 


APPENDIX 


\ 



i 













APPENDIX 


I have been wont, from my earliest years, to make drawings 
of my friends and acquaintances. I do not mean drawings from 
the life; for I have never felt that I had enough talent to justify 
me in asking anyone to “sit.” I mean drawings from memory. 
I have seldom met any one whom I did not, within a few hours 
of parting from him, try to portray with pen or pencil. 

From time to time I have destroyed great quantities of the 
sketches thus accumulated ; but I have always preserved a residue. 
In writing this book of memories I searched that residue (itself 
vast) in the hope of finding means to sharpen my vision. The 
quest was long and tedious, but not all in vain. 

It may be that in the foregoing pages I have failed, for lack 
of literary art, to make actual to the reader an image of this or 
that man described. I offer, therefore, a selection from old 
drawings that are apposite. In doing so, I must warn the reader 
that these are not trustworthy portraits. There is a taint of exag- 
geration in them all. 


M. B. 


I 


y 

ENOCH SOAMES 



[221] 

I 




A page torn from a sketch-book of which I filled several pages with efforts 
to adumbrate Enoch Soames soon after my first meeting with that “dim” person- 
age in ’93. The face in the right-hand corner at the top is that of Professor 
Rothenstein as he appeared in his pre-professorial days. 


[ 222 ] 


\ 









HILARY MALTBY AND 
STEPHEN BRAXTON 


These two drawings were done in the summer of ’95, and were reproduced 
together in The Pall Mall Budget (under the editorship of Mr. Lewis Hind). 
The originals were purchased by Mrs. Foster-Dugdale, in whose collection they 
still are, and by whose kind permission they are here reproduced. 


[226] 





c> 



# 






JAMES PETHEL 


[229] 


From a sketch-book. 

James Pethel is the central figure. “There was,” as I have said, “nothing 
odd about him,” and I had therefore little chance for a caricature. The sub- 
jects of the surrounding sketches were evidently less difficult. 

I remember scribbling this page the morning after my introduction to Pethel, 
before going round to lunch with him. I never drew him again. 


[230] 


\ 

















. 

. 









































































. 

















, 




































A. V. LAIDER 


\ 


» 


[ 233 ] 








This drawing was done in the course of my first, not my second, conval- 
escence at Linmouth. I know that I did several sketches of Laider in the fol- 
lowing year, and these, I think, must have shown more of psychological insight. 
Unfortunately I have been unable to find any of them. This one, however, 
might be worse. 


[234] 


■H 


The Beach Hotel, 

Propr. R. Gar row. 


Linmouth, 

Sussex. 

























■ 


































■ 

/ 































f 


‘SAVONAROLA’ BROWN 


» 


[ 237 ] 


Page from a drawing-block. 

Bating exaggeration, this sketch is true enough to the appearance presented 
by Brown in any of the years of my acquaintance with him. But the scrawled 
“Act I” in one corner of it suggests that it was drawn at a time when Brown 
had confided to me that Act I of his play was finished. This would have been 
towards the end of 1901 or the beginning of 1902. 


[238] 


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